Like This Video
by VintagePoison
Summary: Lucy's an anime-based YouTuber with a massively growing fanbase, who just so happens to be crushing on a certain member of the even bigger anime-based channel, Fairy Tail. She's never met him, and isn't planning to any time soon, but she will soon learn that plans change and life beyond her apartment in the small town of Hargeon is about to get crazy. Nalu.
1. Chapter 1

**Me: *Wow I'm so overwhelmed with college life and can't even keep up with the fics I have***

 **Me: Omg but what if they were YouTubers**

 **Me:**

 **Me:**

 **Me: *Writes over 4k words of a new fanfic***

* * *

"Lucy, please end the video now."

A small blue-haired college student's head hit the table as she whined, the spicy ramen sitting in the bowl beside her filling all of her senses in all the worst ways. Her eyes would not stop watering, her mouth and throat felt like it had caught on fire, and she was beginning to break a sweat after downing nearly an entire bowl of the spiciest ramen they could find.

"Oh c'mon Levy, no fun," Lucy giggled beside the poor girl, looking the complete opposite of how Levy did considering she did not have a single bite of the death ramen. "Do it for the views," she smirked, nudging the bowl slightly toward the defeated blunette's head. Her subscribers were definitely gonna get a kick out of her best friend's suffering. They seemed to just be a bunch of sadists when it came to stuff like this, which is probably why they had asked her to do this in the first place.

"Views aren't worth this shit," Levy moaned. She shifted her head up a little to look at her blonde companion with pure resentment. "Remind me why you aren't doing this too?"

"I hate spicy food," Lucy stated simply with a shrug.

"I hate you," Levy fired back. Lucy couldn't hold back her laugh. Her half-dead roommate turned her head to look directly into the camera lens resting on a tripod behind the table in front of them. "I hate all of you too," she grumbled.

"I don't! Bye!" Lucy waved cheerfully at the camera lens before getting up from her seat and walking around the table to turn the camera off. She turned back to her best friend with a sympathetic smile before walking into the kitchen and opening the fridge.

"And this is for you," she walked back over to the dining area and placed a bottle of water on the table beside the bowl of hot ramen and Levy nearly snatched it out of her hand before downing all of its contents at record speed. She slammed the empty bottle back down on the table, looking up to glare at her blonde friend once more.

"I hate you," she repeated.

"Thanks for doing that for me," Lucy ignored her friend's scornful words. "I probably would have died if I had to eat that."

"I did die," Levy whined dramatically, looking more like herself already. She sighed before getting up from the table and walking over to the living area to plop down exhaustively on the couch. "We're never doing that again."

"Agreed, this is a mess," Lucy frowned at the mess of red ramen on the table from when Levy "accidentally" knocked over some of the contents in the bowl, which still sat there full of evil noodles waiting to be thrown out.

 _Hm…_

She looked over into the living area to make sure Levy wasn't paying attention before picking a single noodle from the bowl and putting it in her mouth.

She immediately spit it back into the bowl, turning into a coughing and sputtering mess as the flavor burned her entire world. Levy instantly looked up from her phone at the sound of suffering in the form of her blonde roommate, raising an eyebrow before bursting into laughter at the realization of what Lucy just did.

"W-what the hell!" Lucy cried through coughs, sprinting to the fridge to get another bottle of water. "How did you manage to eat all that?"

"Maybe making me do the challenge instead was a better idea after all," Levy giggled at her suffering roommate.

As agonzing as it was, Levy was actually happy Lucy asked her to help with the video. She had contemplated having a channel of her own once upon a time, but she was too quiet and shy to actually do it. So she settled for her guest appearances on Lucy's channel.

Lucy had recently hit the 1 million subscriber milestone, and Levy could not be more happy for her. She worked hard on everything she did with the channel, and had been since the beginning of high school when she had a mere 15 subscriber count. She was now in her second year of college and was already well off enough with her YouTube job to drop school entirely and still be fine, but she remained in school for educational purposes. Her channel, named Celestial after a character from one of their favorite animes, was now a well-known name amongst a very large number of anime fans, and Levy had been by her side the whole way. She was more than happy to help with anything she needed assistance with, as a friend as well as a fan.

"Ugh, whatever," Lucy uttered, walking over to plop down on the couch beside her roommate, grabbing the remote that rested on the coffee table on the way and flipping on the flat screen smart TV mounted on the opposite wall. Pressing some buttons on the remote, she opened Netflix and began scrolling through the recommended shows. "We have to watch that new anime they put on Netflix last week. Everyone's asking me to review it," Lucy stated, her gaze fixed on the screen as she focused on finding what she was looking for.

"Are we watching the new Death Book live action movie too? I think they were asking about that," she scrolled through the comments on Lucy's last video, and sure enough, much of the suggestions were related to the supposedly terrible new movie that Netflix had recently released.

"Ugh. I can already tell that's gonna suck though. Did you see the trailer?" Lucy grimaced remembering the cringe fest, finally ceasing her scrolling when she found what she was looking for.

"Yeah but we still have to watch it," Levy sighed.

"Yeah," Lucy huffed. The things she did for her subscribers.

They spent the rest of the night watching the highly recommended anime, deciding to call it a day when the clock hit 3am, neither of them being able to keep their eyes open for much longer despite the show actually being quite good.

Lucy opted for a quick shower before heading to bed, though of course she didn't immediately close her eyes when she was comfortably in bed. She reached over and felt for her phone on the nightstand beside her in the darkness. When she finally found it she picked it up and brought it to her chest, unlocking it and opening the YouTube app. Her eyes immediately lit up at the sight of a new video posted by her favorite channel, Fairy Tail. It was an anime and gaming channel named after the same anime she'd named her channel after, ran by five amazing people. But her favorite member had to be Natsu. He often did videos with Gray, either playing games together or reviewing manga.

Over the years she had developed a huge crush on the pink-haired hothead, to an almost embarrassing degree. She had never actually met or talked to him, despite them both being well-known content creators (Fairy Tail had over 3 million subscribers!) that produced very similar stuff. She had had plenty of opportunities to meet of all of them at various conventions and events, but she was too socially awkward and scared to work up the courage to even attempt to talk to them, even though they all seemed like the nicest people she could never meet (besides Gajeel, but he was adorably grumpy). So she settled for just watching their videos from the comfort of her apartment in Hargeon.

The new video seemed to be a Natsu and Gray one, much to Lucy's excitement. She grew even more interested when she read the title:

 **ANSWERING YOUR PERSONAL QUESTIONS #GONESEXUAL #NOTCLICKBAIT #SUBCRIBE**

She chuckled at the dumb title. God, she loved this channel. The thumbnail of the video, which was already at over 100,000 views despite being posted just today, showed a very amused looking Natsu, his million dollar grin making Lucy's stomach do weird things. He was looking at Gray from his spot on their usual couch setting, while Gray held his face in his hands, elbows resting at his knees. She tapped excitedly on the video, and blackness filled the screen as it buffered for a few seconds before Natsu and Gray's bodies appeared sitting on the yellow couch from the thumbnail.

"So we took to Twitter and asked y'all to give us some questions," right off the bat Natsu's voice bursted through the phone's speakers. He was on his phone, his cringe-smile growing as he continued to scroll through what was probably the questions he was just referring to. "I'm actually really scared to answer these," he chuckled, Lucy grinning amusedly at the sound of his apprehension.

Lucy saw the tweet they had posted a few days ago and had pondered asking a question before deciding against it, knowing both their fanbases would go wild at any sign of the two channels interacting, which would bring attention to herself that she really did not need at the moment.

"Why? It's not like your life is interesting," Gray jabbed from his spot on the couch with a smirk, scrolling through his own phone. Natsu responded immediately by throwing the pillow beside him at the black-haired YouTubers head.

"Fuck off, Elsa," Natsu shot back, and Lucy giggled at the insult.

"I'm not offended by that. Elsa is a strong ice queen, or something," Gray stated proudly.

"I'm glad you think that," Natsu smirked before looking into the camera lens to talk directly to his viewers. "Next video's gonna have Gray dressed up as Elsa the whole time," Natsu grinned, and Lucy briefly caught sight of Gray's jaw dropping when the video instantly cut and returned to Gray and Natsu after a split second. Lucy laughed, wondering what Juvia's reaction would be to that future video. Gray, who was now shirtless showing off his iconic tattoo that everyone in Fairy Tail had, spoke first this time. "Alright, first question. We're gonna start with the easy ones," he cleared his throat, glancing at his phone for a second before looking at Natsu. "How old are you?"

"20," Natsu stated simply with a yawn.

Lucy already knew how old they all were, being fans of them from the very beginning. Natsu was a year older than her, Gray was the same age, Gajeel had recently turned 21, Erza was 23 and Wendy was the youngest, being only 17. The fact that they were all in her age range just made them even more relatable.

"I am also 20," Gray chimed, looking back down at his phone for the next question. "Next question," he smirked before reading it out loud. "Do you have a crush?"

"No," Natsu said simply, though he began scratching the back of his head uncomfortably.

"You're a shitty liar," Gray chuckled.

"I don't!"

"Yeah? What about-" a black bar appeared over his mouth as the sound of a bleep played briefly, censoring out whatever Gray may have said. Whatever he said seemed to bother Natsu though, who launched himself at the man right then. The video cut before viewers could see anything that happened next before cutting back to them both sitting on the couch like normal, though Natsu seemed more red-faced than usual.

Lucy's inner fangirl cried inside. He had a girl he liked. How disappointing.

"Your turn," Natsu smirked devilishly, seemingly no longer flustered as he scrolled through his phone. Once he found a question that caught his interest, his eyes shot up to his apprehensive friend. "If you could fuck any YouTuber who would it be?"

Gray's eyes instantly widened into saucers. "W-what?! Don't ask me that!"

"Gotta answer it, we promised we'd answer our fans' personal questions," Natsu stated simply with, evil grin never leaving his face.

"But what if they watch our videos!" Gray exclaimed, hiding his face in his hands and thus answering the question of how the video thumbnail came to be.

"They'll probably just find it funny or something," Natsu shrugged.

After a long sigh and some contemplative moments spent staring at the ceiling, Gray finally spoke. "... Probably Lockser."

Now it was Lucy's turn for her jaw to drop. Juvia was going to lose her shit when she saw this. Her YouTube obsession had just admitted to being attracted to her, something she probably only expected to happen in her dreams.

The two proceeded to ask each other humiliating questions they found on Twitter, though Lucy had already known the answers to most of the ones that were asked, but she enjoyed the rest of video anyway. She loved watching every member of Fairy Tail, no matter what they did. They were always so funny and full of life, having fun with everything they did. She remembered a time when she had dreamed of joining the group herself, but now that she had created a name for herself she was more content with just watching them.

Finishing the video, she looked through some comments before locking her phone and placing it on the nightstand once more. She sighed contently. No better way to end the day than with a lovely dose of Fairy Tail and Natsu.

* * *

"Well there goes my chances of ever collabing with Lockser," Gray huffed, side eyeing his insufferable pink-haired partner in crime. Natsu merely shrugged in response.

"Don't blame me, blame the fans," He said nonchalantly, leaning back on the couch and continuing to scroll through Twitter. Gray responded by throwing the pillow Natsu had chucked at him earlier directly at his friend's face, knocking his phone out of his hands and sending it tumbling to the floor.

"Dick!" Natsu flung the pillow back with twice as much force, obviously not doing much. "Lockser probably wouldn't even collab with you anyway," he mumbled spitefully.

"Whatever," Gray crossed his arms and leaned back on the couch. "So which YouTuber would you fuck?" He questioned curiously with a smirk, secretly hoping for some ammunition against Natsu in the future.

"Great question!" Before Natsu could answer, their beautiful blue-eyed friend suddenly showed up in the archway entrance of their common area, where Gray looked up instantly muttering a "Shit!" under his breath at the sudden presence and Natsu stiffened.

"Hey Lisanna!" Gray greeted her cheerfully. She smiled wide at him briefly before walking over to sit between them on the couch, noting how a certain pair of eyes watched her the whole way.

"So do tell," her gaze met Natsu's as she nudged his shoulder with her own. "Which YouTuber would you fuck? Don't hold back on me now," she challenged.

"... Definitely Demon Soul," Natsu replied after a moment with an evil smirk. Lisanna gaped at him slightly before hitting him on the arm with a pseudo scoff before laughing at the fact that he just named her sister's channel.

"Not funny," She deadpanned despite her giggling.

"Who said I was joking," Natsu remarked blankly, his amused expression betraying his tone.

She hit him again and Gray chuckled at the two before getting up from his spot on the couch. "I'm gonna go bother Erza," he said casually, leaving the two in the room but not before directing look Natsu's way, in which Natsu rolled his eyes at.

Lisanna bent a knee on the couch, turning to face the remaining male fully. He met her gaze instantly. "So I have a question."

"I already told you I'd fuck Demon Soul," he joked.

She rolled her eyes. "Not that, dummy. Mira told me there was gonna be an anime convention in Crocus in a couple months. Are you guys going?"

"Yeah, we go every year." AniCon in Crocus was one of the biggest anime conventions in the world. It was one of Natsu's favorite events of the year, and because they had such a big fanbase they always did panels and signings where they could interact with fans and have an all around great time. They all loved going. "Why do you ask?"

"I want to come," she chimed excitedly, blue eyes sparkling as she smiled brightly.

Natsu grinned back a little, noting how pretty her smile was before eyeing her quizzically. "Do you realize it's an anime convention, right?" he questioned, knowing full well Lisanna had no interest in anime or anything even relating to it.

Lisanna looked down at her hands sheepishly. "Well, Mira and Elfman are going, and so is everyone else, so I'll just be here by myself for a week and that sounds _very_ boring," she explained before grinning widely again. "So I wanna go too! Think you can fit another person into your plans?"

He smiled warmly at her. "Of course you can come," he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She smiled even bigger and tackled him with a hug that he returned with a laugh and a slight blush. "You're gonna be bored though."

"I'd be even more bored by myself!"

That was true. Being alone was pretty boring. "Good point."

There was a soft gasp that sounded like it came from the archway, and both heads turned to look at the new presence in the room. Whoever had been there ran away before they could see, but they did catch a glimpse of blue, indicating that a certain 17 year-old had just seen them in their position that could be possibly misinterpreted out of context.

They looked at each other, Lisanna giggling and Natsu's face heating up as he suddenly became very aware of their proximity. She had jumped into Natsu's lap in her excitement when she hugged him, probably giving Wendy the wrong idea.

"Let's go tell them," Natsu tried to say as calmly as possible, needing to get out of this situation as soon as possible.

He'd had the biggest crush on his white-haired childhood friend since middle school, and no matter how many times he denied it everyone seemed to know.

Well, everyone besides her.

Lisanna was a very 'touchy' individual who, much like him, had almost no sense of personal space. Out of everyone else in their group, she seemed to be closest to Natsu, which was both a blessing and a curse for her pink-haired friend.

On one hand, Natsu enjoyed her constant touches and invasion of space as it allowed him to be closer to her. But on the other hand it was straight up torture sometimes, since they were just friends and she never showed any signs of wanting more.

As such, he struggled to keep his cool as she straddled him on the couch with her arms wrapped tightly around him.

Thankfully, Lisanna nodded at his request, and they left the living room to find the rest of Natsu's housemates (minus one, Gajeel almost never left his room) doing their own individual things in the kitchen. At the counter island Gray was shoveling giant scoops of ice cream into a large bowl. Erza sat at the dining table, scrolling through Twitter with a large helping of strawberry cake, and Wendy was filling up two small bowls for their her cat, Carla, and Natsu's cat, Happy. The two cats came scurrying into the kitchen at the sound of the food being shaken out of the box, brushing past the two newcomer's legs.

Upon noticing the new people in the room, Gray, Erza and Wendy all looked up from what they were doing to see who had entered. Wendy's cheeks tinted red slightly, remembering what she had seen mere minutes ago.

"So Lisanna's coming to Crocus with us this year," Natsu stated right off the bat, earning grins from everyone else in the room.

"That's good to hear," Erza smiled, "It'll be more fun with more people."

"Are you sure you'll be able to handle a huge con like that?" Gray laughed.

"I'll manage," Lisanna giggled. "I just don't wanna be here alone. Everyone's going this year."

"Awesome," Wendy piped up, momentarily forgetting what she had seen. "Do you watch anime?"

Lisanna sheepishly tucked a lock of white hair behind her ear. "No, but," she shrugged. "I like Pikachu!" she grinned almost proudly.

The room collectively chuckled at her mention of the widely-known Pokemon. She picked a random small plush doll off the floor, probably left there by one of the cats after they had finished playing with it. "And this," she held up the figure of a brown dog-cat looking animal. "Is uh, Charizard?"

Everyone laughed even harder, Gray bracing himself on the counter to keep himself from falling over in mirth. Erza and Wendy whipped a hand over their mouths in an attempt to stifle her increasingly loud giggling. Natsu amusedly dragged a hand down his face as he laughed along with them, taking the plush Eevee doll from her hands. Lisanna giggled along with them, not embarrassed but rather amused at herself for possibly making a grave error.

"A for effort," Natsu chuckled, placing the doll back on the floor for the cats to play with again later.

Once everyone sobered Erza smiled up at their guest from her seat. "Are you staying for dinner, Lisanna?"

She looked up in thought, realizing she had absolutely nothing to do today and grinning. She nodded and joined Erza at the table. "Yeah, why not?"

"Cool," Gray grinned, pulling his phone from his pocket to call their local pizza place. "Am I getting two pies or three?"

"Three," Everyone declared simultaneously in mutual agreement.

"I say we get four."

"That is way too much, Natsu," Erza snapped.

"But-"

She glared daggers at him, violent promises swimming in her brown eyes.

"Y-yes ma'am!"

Gray snickered and muttered something that sounded suspiciously like "pussy" under his breath.

"What was that, ice dick?!" Natsu rushed towards the counter island where his his droopy eyed housemate smirked smugly.

Gray dropped his ice cream scoop on the counter, prepared and eager to fight. "I said you're a-"

Before Gray could finish his sentence Natsu had practically jumped over the counter island to tackle him to the ground. Before he could actually cause any actual harm, however, in a flash the older redhead appeared behind him and grabbed the back of his shirt roughly. He stilled immediately, fear instantly replacing anger.

"What do you think you're doing?" Erza said with an eerie calmness, frightening Natsu even more.

"But he just-"

She moved to stand between the two before smacking them both hard over the head. They whined at the sudden pain, grasping at where she had hit them. "Stop acting like children," she scolded with a scowl before returning to her strawberry cake. Lisanna giggled at the interaction that she seemed to see every time she visited.

Everyone paused as they suddenly heard a very loud, _angry_ yell coming from upstairs.

"Is that..?"

"Gajeel. He's probably doing a video."

"Ah."

Lisanna loved coming over.

* * *

Lucy scrolled through the comments of her last video, relieved that people didn't seem to mind that she made Levy do that ramen challenge instead of doing it herself.

"They love you," Lucy giggled at her blue-haired roommate who sat across from her at the table, eating a fluffy and thankfully not spicy croissant. The smaller woman cringed as she remembered the evil noodles she had to ingest last night.

"They better," she muttered. "That was horrible."

Both their phones suddenly vibrated from their spots on the table, both girls looking down at their screens and exchanging giggles as Juvia spammed their Snapchat group chat.

 **OMF**

 **OMG**

 **GUYS**

 **GUYSS**

 **DID**

 **OMG**

 **GRAY**

 **LAST NIGHT**

 **THE VIDEO**

 **DID YOU WTAHC IT**

 **IM SCREAMINF**

 **ICANT**

"Do you think she saw the video?" Levy questioned with mock curiosity.

"Hm, possibly," Lucy hummed, picking up her mug and taking a small sip of her tea.

The bluenette continued to ceaselessly spam short bursts of fangirlisms. They laughed as the short individual messages quickly filled the whole screen before a new line with a purple box beside a "tap to view" appeared, indicating she had just sent a video. They both opened it at the same time, the sound of the video in sync as it played on both their devices.

The camera was directed towards her laptop, which showed an internet browser opened to the YouTube video Fairy Tail had posted last night. They caught a short glimpse of Juvia's finger as she pressed the spacebar on her laptop, resuming the video.

" _If you could fuck any YouTuber who would it be?"_

" _W-what?! Don't ask me that!"_

" _Gotta answer it, we promised we'd answer our fans' personal questions."_

" _But what if they watch our videos!"_

" _They'll probably just find it funny or something."_

" _... Probably Lockser."_

She pressed the spacebar again and flipped the camera view over to her face, and Lucy instantly giggled uncontrollably at her absolutely gobsmacked expression.

"I-I just-" She stammered before shutting her eyes tightly and letting out a loud squeal that was cut off after a split second as the short video ended.

Their fingers moved on their screens as they responded to their friend.

 **Levy:**

 **I think I see a collab in your future ;)**

 **Lucy:**

 **You should comment on the video lol**

 **Let him know you're very interested c;**

 **Juvia:**

 **ABSOLUTELYNOT**

They continued to talk to their animated YouTuber friend before she left the chat, likely to fangirl to other unassuming souls.

"You should do a video like that," Levy suggested. "People would love it,"

Lucy pondered the idea for a bit before shaking her head. "My life isn't interesting enough."

"They won't be asking about your life, they'll be asking about _you_. C'mon, let the world know your darkest secrets."

"They probably already know everything," Lucy laughed, doing something on her phone before moving to the living room to get the camera. "But sure, I'll do it. Sounds like fun."

"We're doing this _right now_?" Levy blanched, noticing Lucy fumbling with the tripod.

"No, I just sent out the tweet." The blonde moved the tripod with the camera on it in front of the couch before disappearing into the hallway. "We start after I change," she called out before the sound of a door opening and closing.

30 minutes later found Lucy walking back into the living room wearing a simple leggings and plain oversized grey sweater ensemble, ready to possibly embarrass herself on camera with overly personal questions. Levy sat on the couch behind the sofa, looking up at the blonde with a grin when she entered.

"There's so many questions already," Levy grinned, looking back down at her phone. "Can I choose them?"

"Sure," Lucy said simply without thinking, turning on the camera and plopping down on the sleek grey couch in front of it, missing the evil smirk that graced her roommate's friend for the briefest of moments.

"Perfect," she responded with a hint of mischief that Lucy didn't catch.

Once she was settled, Lucy took a deep breath, smiling widely after breathing out.

"Alright," she clapped her hands together, staring into the camera lens. "So I asked you guys on Twitter to send me some questions," she gushed excitedly. Levy smiled gleefully at her best friend. She was always so much brighter and happier when she was behind a camera.

"Levy's gonna read them out to me and I'm gonna answer them to the best of my ability, so without further ado," Lucy closed her eyes as she gave a large grin to the camera before opening them and pointing to Levy, who couldn't be seen in the shot as she was sitting behind the camera. "Let's get started."

"Alright…" Levy began scrolling through the questions, patiently awaiting her opportunity for revenge after the spicy ramen incident of 2018. "First question, are you single?"

Levy giggled and wiggled her brows suggestively at her friend, who chuckled at the question. "Yes," she stated simply. "To not be single you have to actually go out and like, socialize," she shrugged. "That isn't really my thing." One of the reasons Lucy loved making videos so much was the fact that she could express herself to others without actually interacting with them directly and triggering her social awkwardness.

Levy continued to ask her various weird questions from "What's your cup size?" to "If you could be any tree, what kind of tree would you be?" before she finally decided it was time for her payback plan to commence.

"Next question," the casual smile she had been sporting throughout the recording suddenly shifted onto the evil side, and by the time Lucy noticed it was too late. "If you could bang any YouTuber, who would it be?"

Lucy gaped at her backstabbing best friend, unable to believe this betrayal. "I'm not answering that!" she cried.

"Oh come on, I ate spicy ramen for you," Levy replied innocently, pulling the guilt card.

"Nope, you can't guilt trip me on this."

"What's the worst that can happen," Levy argued. "He asked the same thing to Gray, so it's not like he's exactly _sensitive_ about the topic," Levy giggled.

Lucy closed her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh, deciding her roommate had a point. There was also a small part of her that actually wanted to see how her YouTube crush would react if he saw this. It's not like she had to actually talk to him. It was just a funny question for a video.

She couldn't let her fans down.

"Hm… If I could bang any YouTuber..." She pretended to look up in thought before her grin returned.

"... It'd be Natsu from Fairy Tail."


	2. Chapter 2

**Omg reading your kind reviews makes my day**

 **So I busted out another chapter in a week c:**

* * *

The next four days passed by like normal. Lucy went to class, came home to edit videos, watched Fairy Tail, went to sleep, and repeat. But today was different. Today was _the day_. She slumped in her seat in front of the computer with the upload window open, ready to post the video she and Levy had made on Sunday. The video basically admitted her desire to get down and dirty with her favorite YouTuber, but while she had the title and description written out and the thumbnail in place, she just couldn't seem to stop getting distracted.

Yeah, she was _distracted_. That's what it was.

Obviously.

Of course it wasn't the fact that she was terrified of posting the video now that she was actually about to do it. And in no way was it the fact that she was almost certain Natsu would see it and she would most likely die of utter mortification.

Why had she agreed to this?

"Lucy, just post it," Levy looked amusedly at her friend's back from her place on the blonde's bed, an old manga on her lap.

"I'm about to."

"No you're not, you're playing Pokemon under the desk."

Lucy stifled her cry of frustration as she accidentally defeated the Ralts she had meant to catch, resisting the urge to throw her DS in rage as any mature 20 year-old young woman would do in this situation. Those were so hard to find! Now she'd likely be spending another 30 minutes running through the tall grass hunting down that elusive sonofabitch _again_. "I'm not," she lied.

"You don't have to upload it if you don't want to," Levy assured her. "I was just messing with you… for the most part."

She wasn't going to force her to post something she wasn't comfortable with, but she did secretly want her to upload the video. This could be the push she needed to step out of her comfort zone a bit and actually maybe get a little closer to Fairy Tail, something she knew Lucy had dreamed of doing since she discovered their channel. Natsu would no doubt see it, and finally see how much of a cool, down-to-earth girl Lucy was. Hell, he may even want to collaborate with her. _Hell_ , he may even start to crush on her too. Lucy was certainly a sight for sore eyes, not to mention she was _very_ well-endowed. Despite the fact that she never wore anything low-cut on camera, she got frequent comments on her breasts that she ignored for the most part, being overshadowed by other more meaningful comments.

Levy really wanted Lucy to post this video.

After a few more minutes Lucy finally seemed to look up at her computer screen, before swiftly turning in her swivel chair to face her roommate, apprehension running across all her features. "I'm scared," she admitted.

"Lucy, I'm telling you from a logical standpoint. It's not a big deal," Levy chuckled.

"You do it," Lucy said suddenly, moving to the side slightly in her chair, signalling her friend to come over and press the upload button for her. Levy sighed and maintained Lucy's gaze exhaustedly for a moment before giving in to her evil puppy-dog eyes and hopping off the bed to walk over to the computer. All she had to do was press the "Upload" button and the video would begin uploading onto the World Wide Web.

She placed a hand on Lucy's mouse and moved it across her Pokemon themed mouse pad, hovering over the button.

"WAIT!"

"What?" Levy sighed, looking at her best friend with a bored, yet exasperated expression. The poor girl looked like she was about to throw up. She almost laughed at how much Lucy was overreacting, not that she blamed her. Levy would probably be the exact same way if she was in this situation.

"I changed my mind, I'll do it," Lucy rambled quickly, shakily attempting to move her roommate's hand off the mouse and replace it with hers. Unluckily for her, she was a bit _too_ shaky with her movements, and accidentally nudged Levy's index finger closer to the mouse rather than away from it. There was a short clicking sound and a white bar suddenly appeared on the computer screen, filling with blue as black text that read "Uploading… 1%" appeared inside of it. The one percent quickly changed to 10%, then to 50%, before finally reaching 100.

Shortly after a blue link showed up under the phrase "Your video has been uploaded."

"Well," Levy looked at the screen in disbelief, "you did it."

"Wh—" Lucy stared slack-jawed at her screen, absolutely speechless at what just happened. Had she did what she had _planned_ on doing at the very last second, which was close out of the browser completely to prevent any chance of uploading, the video would have been posted about an hour later after some editing, _without_ the Natsu bit.

After a moment she regained her senses and swiftly moved back in front of her computer, Levy only narrowly avoiding being knocked over in her hurry.

"I have to take it down," she muttered hurriedly, quickly clicking through various screens. "I can just take it down."

"Thousands of people are probably already watching it as we speak, Lucy."

"Ahh you're right!" Lucy squeaked, shoving her burning face in her hands. "It'll just look worse if I take it down now," she mumbled through her fingers.

"It'll be fine." Levy placed a hand on the distressed blonde's shoulder. "It's just a harmless comment you said on a video."

"You're right," Lucy said almost instantly, expression almost immediately sobering as she stood and left the room. Distractions. She needed distractions.

 _If I could bang any YouTuber..._

 _... It'd be Natsu from Fairy Tail._

" _Ahh! Why did I say that!_ " Levy heard Lucy yell from the kitchen. She sighed and rushed to console her roommate before she had a nervous breakdown.

* * *

Natsu's fans were acting weird.

He always received links to YouTube videos from them, usually content of their own creation in their attempt to get him to check out their channels. While he did take the time to look at some occasionally, he couldn't do it very often as he simply had no time to watch every single video that was sent to him, as much as he wished he did.

Today though, when he checked his email many of them had the same link to the same YouTube video, rather than a bunch of individual ones. They also flooded his other social media, and at this point he was convinced that someone had dropped a diss track on him or something. The thought kind of excited him, loving the idea of Fairy Tail creating a rebuttal track and knowing the fans would eat it up as well.

He was about to tap the link to the video from one of the many emails before Erza busted into his room with no regard for his privacy, as usual.

"Natsu. Meet us in the living room in 30 seconds," she commanded before slamming the door shut again. Bewildered, but getting up immediately nonetheless (you did _not_ defy Erza), he quickly clicked on the video to see the length of it. _10 minutes._ The watching of the diss track would have to wait.

He threw on a plain white t-shirt and shuffled down the stairs, striding into the living room with 3 seconds to spare. He sat at the end of the couch that was already occupied by Gray, Wendy and an annoyed looking Gajeel.

"Why are we here?" The ubiquitously pierced male questioned, likely agitated that he had been forced to come out of his man cave.

"Cana's birthday is 2 weeks." Erza ignored his attitude as she scanned the couch occupants. "We're going to surprise her with a visit."

"Doesn't Cana live in like, bumblefuck or whatever?" Gray raised a brow.

"She lives in _Hargeon_ , Gray," Erza corrected sternly.

"That's basically bumblefuck," Natsu agreed with the ice queen for once. "Can't we just give her a surprise Skype call?"

"No." Erza's eye twitched slightly, quickly growing annoyed at the lack of cooperation. "I spoke with her yesterday, and she said she misses us. She also mentioned throwing a birthday party." Erza grinned suddenly. "So we're going to crash it."

"That sounds like fun!" Wendy chimed, "Let's go! I haven't seen Cana in so long!"

"That sounds like…" Natsu paled. "... A lot of transportation."

"Yes, and you are going to bear it for our dear friend Cana who we have not seen in two years and misses us dearly," Erza scolded. Natsu slunk hopelessly back into the couch, knowing it was useless to argue.

"I'm not going," Gajeel muttered, also unnerved at the thought of getting to who-knows-where on a _train_ for an estimated amount of time that he really did not want to find out.

Oh God, what if they needed to get on a _plane_?

Erza's intense brown eyes seemed to burn into his soul, and in a split second Gajeel was defeatedly lying back on the couch as well.

Gray looked up in thought as if remembering something. "... Doesn't your boyfriend Jellal live in Bargeon too?" He smirked slyly at the redhead, a ballsy move. "I'm starting to think there's some ulterior motive her—"

Before Gray could finish his thought he was flung back into the couch from sheer force of a deeply blushing Erza's fist hitting his face, joining the two who still stared blankly ahead, souls basically gone from their bodies as their minds were haunted with the terrifying concept known as _transportation_.

" _Hargeon_ ," she futilely corrected. "And Jellal is _not_ my boyfriend."

Wendy tiredly looked at the disoriented men slumped over on the couch and sighed. "Why do the meetings always somehow end up like this?"

"Because men are idiots, Wendy," Erza answered simply, crossing one leg over the other and lifting a hand to absently examine her manicured nails. "Especially these men."

Wendy giggled and nodded before both ladies stood to return to what they had been doing previously. Erza waved a nonchalant hand at the men as she disappeared through the archway. "Don't forget we leave in two weeks," she called before leaving the room fully to record a new video for the channel. She was planning on doing a review for a romance anime, her favorite.

It took several more minutes for Natsu to shove the thought of death-by-automobile to the back of his mind for the moment, sitting up from the couch and looking back to snicker at Gray, who was still a tad out of sorts after that Erza punch. Gajeel seemed to come to his senses at the same time, getting up and grumbling a bit before retreating back to his room where he would likely not come out for the rest of the day.

Natsu tried to remember what he had been doing before this, whipping out his phone from the pocket of his gray sweatpants when his memory returned to him. Luckily the video was still there when he unlocked it, flipping it to landscape view as the video buffered. He took quick note of the title.

 **Answering your weird questions!**

Well that was a strange title for a diss track.

It was posted by a YouTube channel named Celestial, the name familiar but not ringing any bells other than that. He didn't really watch that many other YouTubers, only knowing of Lockser because he saw Gray watching one of her anime episode reviews one day. He preferred to spend his free time watching anime, reading manga or playing video games.

He was expecting the video to immediately start with some generic beat, maybe an overdressed guy sitting on a fancy car with some expensive chains or shades or something. That's how those videos usually started, right?

His eyebrows shot skyward and he instantly sat up when the video finished buffering and revealed a ridiculously attractive girl sitting casually on a couch.

"Hello~," Natsu practically sang as he took in the hot girl on his screen. She had long blonde hair and big brown eyes that basically sparkled as she grinned widely at the camera. She wore a plain gray sweater, and while it was oversized and the collar went up to the base of her neck, it did absolutely nothing to hide the huge rack that put even Erza's to shame.

This girl dropped a diss track on him?

"So I asked you guys on Twitter to send me some questions," the beauty began to speak, Natsu instantly questioning how a sweet voice like that could possibly diss anyone.

Though he was starting to think it wasn't actually a diss track after watching the video for three minutes and realizing she was just answering questions sent to her from Twitter, much like he and Gray did in their video from last week. Nonetheless, he did enjoy watching it, letting out a chuckle every time she said a joke about a weird question and raising an amused brow at some of her answers. At one point he felt the couch shift slightly as Gray sat up, flinching and rubbing the sore spot on his head. Natsu ignored him, eyes fixed on the beautiful blonde on his phone screen.

"You're watching Celestial?" Gray questioned curiously, having never seen Natsu actually watch someone else's YouTube video other than his friend's.

"People kept sending me this video."

"Why?"

"Not sure yet, but she's cute," Natsu admitted. "And she seems cool. Not the diss track type."

"Diss track?"

He tore his eyes away from the screen to look at his bewildered housemate. "Why else would they send me this video?"

"I doubt Celestial would waste her time dropping a diss track on anyone though, let alone _you_ ," Gray stated curiously.

"I'm starting to think that too." Natsu returned his gaze to his screen, ignoring Gray's not-so subtle jab. "I'm just gonna keep watching it and see what happens." While it may not be a diss track, he found the video entertaining either way, not to mention Celestial was seriously drop-dead gorgeous.

Natsu and Gray, who ended up staying and watching the video with him, were still snickering at a previous question when the voice of the unseen young woman in the background asked one that he quite vividly recognized from the video they did last week.

"If you could bang any YouTuber, who would it be?"

Gray flinched and Natsu smirked evilly as the memory of the previous video of theirs flashed through their minds. And this girl, who he had eventually learned was named Lucy, seemed to have the exact same reaction Gray had at the time, jaw dropping to the floor and eyes widening into saucers before glaring at a presence behind the camera. The video cut then for a split second, returning to a much more composed, smiling Lucy.

"Hm… If I could bang any YouTuber..." She seemed to look up in thought for a moment before her grin returned.

"... It'd be Natsu from Fairy Tail."

He nearly fell off the couch.

"Holy shit," Gray smirked, brows going straight up. "Celestial's got a lady boner for ya."

"No way," Natsu murmured mostly to himself, fighting the face-splitting smile that was currently threatening to invade his face.

"I'm actually kinda jealous," Gray continued, crossing his arms over his chest and sighing.

Natsu tapped the left side of his screen twice, sending the video back ten seconds. She definitely just said what he thought she did, right?

The last ten seconds of the video played once more, fully solidifying his suspicions.

" _If I could bang any YouTuber… It'd be Natsu from Fairy Tail."_

This _ridiculously hot_ girl he'd been basically ogling for the past ten minutes just said that.

This stuff only happened in dreams, right?

"Wipe that stupid big smile off your face, I bet she wouldn't be saying that if she actually knew your dumbass," Gray chuckled, bringing Natsu back to reality as he swung at his housemate who managed to narrowly dodge another blow to his head.

"Fuck off you damn ice cube," Natsu fired back. "You're just mad Lucy likes me better."

"Already on a first-name basis, I see," Gray teased, avoiding another punch. "What would Lisanna think?"

Natsu merely flipped off the droopy eyed ice princess, hopping off the couch to head back to his room.

He stomped up the steps and swung open his room door, closing it behind him as he walked over to his desk, navigating through his messy room to get to his laptop that rested beside a half-empty bottle of hot sauce. Once he retrieved it he flopped back on his small couch, unfolded his laptop and opened YouTube.

Nowadays he didn't really watch other people's channels, but this Lucy girl had basically shouted him out on her channel, so he felt it only right to check hers out. Her 1 million subscribers didn't surprise him, considering how many people had sent him her video. Though while he shouldn't have been surprised considering his own content, he didn't expect to see that Celestial seemed to base most of her channel on anime. He clicked one of her most recent videos, a review of the horrible new Death Book live action movie.

He soon understood why Celestial was such a big channel. As he watched, his amused grins soon shifted to chuckles and then later full blown laughter as she mercilessly ripped into the movie with jokes and reenacted scenes from the movie that she placed her own twist on, usually to point out the flaws in a comical way. Natsu had wholeheartedly agreed with every critique, but even if you didn't you'd likely still enjoy her method of tearing it apart and may have even ended up agreeing with her in the end.

When it ended, he gave the video a "Like", and found himself almost subconsciously clicking another one.

And another one.

Well, there went his afternoon.

* * *

"Stop laughing at my darling Gray!"

Juvia's agitated voice crackled through the speakers on Lucy's computer as the blonde struggled to hold in bursts of laughter every time she looked at Gray in his way-too-small Elsa costume and poorly done makeup. He'd fumbled with the wig so much during the video that at this point it was just a blonde mass on the side of his head, spiky black-hair poking out on all sides. Juvia had recently stopped fangirling about the video where Gray admitted to being attracted to her, likely due to the fact that she would most certainly melt into a puddle if she didn't shove it to the back of her mind.

"I'm… not," Lucy barely to managed to slip out, slapping a hand over her mouth to stifle the loud giggle when Natsu ripped off his wig and Gray began to yell at him to give it back, stopping short when realized what he was saying.

"Gray looks wonderful in everything he wears," Juvia gushed, her sigh being heard faintly through the Skype call. "Seriously, how can you like Natsu better when he shares the screen with _him_?"

"Because _look_ at him," Lucy breathed, placing her chin in the palm of her hand and gazing dreamily at the pink-haired YouTubers bright grin.

"I _guess_ ," Juvia reluctantly agreed. "But still."

It had been several days since the fateful day when Lucy had accidentally uploaded _the video_. She had spent at least two hours nonsensically rambling to Levy about constellations in her attempt to distract herself from what had just transpired then, until she ultimately forgot about it.

… For the most part. It was hard to forget about it when she had been getting constantly tagged with tweets containing the hashtag "Nalu" nonstop since the video dropped.

She and Juvia were now watching one of Fairy Tail's newest videos while Levy got ready for them to get something to eat in the outside world. As promised in their question video, a recent Natsu and Gray upload included Gray in a child's Elsa costume, the dress barely going down to his knees and looking absolutely ridiculous while they reviewed a disturbingly graphic horror manga. It was glorious, especially considering Natsu's infectious laughter throughout most of the video making it that much more humorous.

Juvia had been in the middle of one of her famous "Gray is amazing" lectures when Levy peeped her head into Lucy's room, ready to go.

"Gotta go, we're going to 8 Island before class," Lucy sang, almost impatient to get some food into her starving system.

Levy said a short greeting to Juvia before leaving the room to go wait in the common area.

"Lucky! There's no 8 Island here," Juvia huffed from her seat in her apartment in Oak Town, a place even smaller than Hargeon.

"Well you should come visit then," Lucy said simply, slightly surprised at the realization that Juvia had never actually come to visit them despite being good friends with both roommates and meeting them at various conventions.

"I should. I might come next week, not even joking," Juvia said suddenly, mind filling with mouthwatering thoughts of the world famous 8 Island.

"Really?" Lucy grinned brightly. "Do it!"

"I just might," Juvia giggled.

After excitedly planning Juvia's impromptu trip to Hargeon for two minutes, the two exchanged their farewells and Lucy grabbed her bag from the desk to meet Levy at the front door.

"Sorry, Juvia just told me she was visiting in a couple weeks and I got excited," Lucy beamed, her roommate's jaw dropping slightly before matching her grin.

"No way!" She squealed. "I miss her!"

The two giddily discussed Juvia's living arrangements for her visit, and before they knew it they were standing in front of one of the most popular fast food places in the world, the famous 8 Island. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, they only had locations in Hargeon and Magnolia, much to the two friend's pleasure.

Thankfully for them, it was a slow day, so they were able to order and find a place to sit fairly easily. They had been enjoying their deliciously crisp french fries at a table by the window when the glass door swung open next to them and a pretty brunette woman stumbled into the restaurant.

She turned her head in the direction of the register, but her eye caught onto something on Lucy's navy blue sweatshirt and she quickly changed course, wobbling over to the two girls.

"Y-you guys go to Hargeon U?" The brunette slurred, gesturing to the Hargeon University graphic on Lucy's shirt. Lucy caught the scent of alcohol as the mysterious woman spoke, cringing slightly but smiling nonetheless at her.

"Yeah," Lucy stated simply. The woman's eyes immediately lit up.

"Could you direc' me beck to campus? It's around 'ere right?" She bashfully brought a hand up to scratch the back of her head. "Got in a fight with my boyfriend, so I took a walk an' now 'm lost," she admitted.

The two friends eyed the brunette sympathetically and nodded simultaneously. "Yeah, we were just about to go back if you want to come along," Lucy suggested, unwilling to leave this poor girl on her own in her condition. It was kind of a weird and unexpected situation, but she had kind eyes and was only asking to be directed to campus, and they couldn't just leave her there when she looked like she was going to fall over any minute. She also looked very familiar, though Lucy couldn't really remember where she'd seen her before.

They both stood, Levy picking up their trash to throw away while Lucy placed a supportive arm over the drunk woman's shoulder to steady her. It was a group effort to help the girl through the exit of the restaurant.

"Thank you so, _so_ mush," she exclaimed happily, throwing them slightly off guard when she swung her arms around both their shoulders and pulled them close. They exchanged giggles when they recovered as they continued their short walk to campus, already in sight after only walking for two minutes. It was just another one of the many benefits of living on campus, 8 Island was only a ten minute walk away!

"It's no problem," Lucy smiled warmly at her. "I'm Lucy by the way."

"And I'm Levy," piped in the petite blunette.

The intoxicated woman grinned brightly at them both, unable to shake their hands at the moment.

"Name's Cana, nishe to meet ya!"

* * *

 **Thank you to everyone who followed/favorited/reviewed/etc you're all amazing and beautiful and fantastic and lovely and have a wonderful day.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Shorter chapter. Next one will be longer c;**

* * *

Four days before their trip to Hargeon to visit their always-drunk friend for her birthday, the Fairy Tail house was in chaos as everyone struggled to record many more videos than usual in the span of several days. They wanted to have videos to post to the channel while they spent a week in Hargeon, where they'd likely only be recording videos more on the vlog side than their usual content.

Natsu and Gray were intensely focused on editing all their videos at the dining table, Erza and Wendy decided to do a series of collaborations where they reviewed several different romance anime in the living room, and all the while an occasional "FUCK!" echoed throughout the entire house as Gajeel recorded his gameplay videos, most of which resulted in him rage-quitting after five minutes.

It was at this time when the front door could be heard swinging open, followed by light footsteps. Lisanna walked into the kitchen with a bright grin as she greeted the two who looked up from their laptops curiously before instantly relaxing and grinning at the new presence.

"Hey Lisanna!" Natsu beamed, happy to see her for the first time in two weeks. Though she lived a mere five minute walk away, she was often busy with her modeling job to come over as often as she would like to.

"I'm bored," she said simply, pulling out the chair next to Natsu and plopping down dramatically, earning a chuckle from Natsu as she haphazardly dropped her head on his shoulder and looked at his screen. She pouted when she saw the editing software opened on his laptop. "You guys are working? No fun," she sighed.

"We have to get all these videos done before we leave for Hargeon in a couple days," Gray informed her. Lisanna lifted a brow at the new information.

"You're going to Hargeon?"

"Yeah, for Cana's birthday," Natsu clarified.

"I'm going!" She declared excitedly, though it only lasted for a moment before her grin dropped and the pout returned. "Wait, I can't. I have work," she whined.

The glimmer in Natsu's eyes when she had said she'd be going with them diminished in a second. "Aw. I got excited you were actually gonna come with us for a sec there," he sighed.

She looked up at him and gave a small smile before moving closer to his side and absentmindedly looking at the laptop screen, missing the way his cheeks visibly heated at the proximity. Gray glanced up from his laptop with a smirk, and Natsu silently flipped him off with his eyes before returning his attention to the video he was editing. Though giving his full attention to the video was an action that proved difficult when his childhood crush was cuddling up to him like this.

"I'm definitely going to AniCon, though," she indicated.

"Good," Natsu grinned.

Erza and Wendy popped into a kitchen after a moment, pleasantly surprised to see the visitor who smiled back at them in greeting.

"Hey Lisanna! Good to see you," Wendy chimed, placing the tripod in her hands against the counter before walking to the table to take a seat.

"I see you're all busy with videos today," Lisanna giggled, noticing the camera in Erza's hands before she placed it on the table and sat as well.

"Yes. We're going to Hargeon for Cana's birthday in a few days so we won't be able to record," Erza clarified.

"I heard. Tell Cana I said Happy Birthday!"

"I will," Erza smiled. "Speaking of recording…" Her gaze shifted to the pink-haired male Lisanna was leaning on. "I heard you were mentioned in Celestial's video," she smirked knowingly at him.

"Oh yeah! It was all over Twitter last week," Wendy piped up from her seat.

Natsu resisted the urge to smile at the memory of the video, and found it even harder when he recalled how flooded his mentions were when it first dropped. "NaLu" was quickly becoming a widely known ship in the anime YouTuber community, and Natsu couldn't say he was complaining. Recently he found himself watching every video she'd put out since he discovered her. He just couldn't help himself, she was entertaining and funny. Not to mention she was ridiculously hot.

Yeah, he was a fan.

"It was pretty cool of her to shout me out on her channel," Natsu grinned.

"She seems quite fond of you," Erza smiled back.

Something flashed in Lisanna's eyes, but no one noticed. She lifted her head from Natsu's shoulder, placing both elbows on the table and leaned forward, suddenly very interested in the current topic of conversation. "So who exactly is this Celestial?" She inquired casually.

"She's this really hot YouTuber Natsu's been obsessed with lately," Gray smirked, earning a glare from Natsu. Before he could make a snide remark though, Lisanna spoke up.

"Can I see her?"

"Hold on, I'll pull up her Twitter." Wendy moved her fingers across her phone's screen for a few brief moments before flipping it around and extending her arm across the table to show Lisanna.

Natsu caught a glimpse of the photo Wendy had showed her from his spot right beside Lisanna, and his throat went dry.

She was in Fairy Tale cosplay dressed as Lucinda, the main character in the show. Laying on a bed of yellow flowers that reminded him of a certain episode, Lucy stared straight towards the sky, the picture seeming candid as she stared up with a pensive expression. Lucinda tended to often dress in a way that left very little to the imagination, and Lucy seemed to stay true to the character's style, a small blue and white tube top and equally tiny blue vest covering her voluptuous chest and exposing her slim waist. She wore a short skirt that exposed her flawless thighs a little before the photo was cut off. The sight of Lucy in cosplay of the show he loved so much combined with the fact that she was absolutely breathtaking made Natsu's stomach flip in all the right ways, and he couldn't bring himself to look away.

"Wow, she's really pretty," Lisanna voiced.

"Yeah!" Wendy agreed, bringing her phone back to her side much to Natsu's disappointment. "She has a great channel too," she added.

"I see," Lisanna hummed. She suddenly turned to smirk at Natsu. "You like her eh?"

"I-I like her channel," Natsu stammered, avoiding any and all eye contact.

Lisanna giggled before getting up from her seat. "Right. I'm glad I got to see you all before you left! I should probably get ready to head to work."

"It was good to see you," Erza stated with a smile.

Lisanna exchanged hugs with everyone in the room, giving a slightly longer one to Natsu before heading out of the Fairy Tail house. The act did not go unnoticed by him, who then stared thoughtfully at her as she disappeared through the door down the hall.

"You okay Natsu?" Wendy questioned, noticing his rare concentrated expression.

"He's just thinking about the threesome he's having with Lisanna and Celestial in his dreams," Gray snickered.

Natsu swiveled around instantly to lunge at him, but was pleasantly surprised to see Erza was already glowering at him, standing behind his seat with a vicious glint in her eyes.

"That was inappropriate and uncalled for, Gray," Erza scolded with mock patience. He shot up to run but was stopped short by a manicured hand firmly grabbing him by the back of his shirt.

"P-please don't kill me!" He cried amidst Natsu's roaring laughter.

"I offer no promises."

"Don't kill him!" Wendy exclaimed. Gray grinned appreciatively at the younger teen.

"—At least not here. I don't wanna be a witness!"

" _What?!_ " Gajeel's loud voice rang from upstairs in a tone of disbelief. Gray found that it matched exactly the way he felt at that moment as his jaw dropped at Wendy's betrayal and Erza dragged him out of the kitchen by the collar of his shirt.

* * *

"You're going."

"What, so you don't have to go but _I_ do?" Lucy huffed, crossing her arms across her chest as she stood on other side of the counter island, glaring at Levy's back as she grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. She turned back around to return eye contact with Lucy.

"You know I'm not good with people," Levy replied simply.

"And _I_ am?"

"Well you're always talking about how you want a more eventful college life, and you got invited to a party," Levy stated nonchalantly.

" _We_ got invited to a party," Lucy corrected. "You're coming with me."

"But—"

"Nope. You're going. I'm not going into the lion's den known as a college party without you," Lucy informed firmly.

Levy opened her mouth to retort, but stayed silent when she found that Lucy had a good point. She'd want Lucy with her if she were ever in a situation such as a party where there'd likely be many people they did not know in an enclosed space. "Or we could just not go and make an excuse."

"I agree wholeheartedly."

After guiding Cana back to her on-campus apartment (where they found out that Cana lived in the same building as them, go figure) the other week, they'd been noticing her around campus, and the tipsy brunette always waved at them cheerfully whenever she saw them, occasionally walking over to make short conversation before they went their separate ways.

The other day however, when they were returning to their building they ran into Cana, who had been leaving for class. They had exchanged greetings, but before Cana continued on her way she had mentioned her birthday was this week, and she'd be having a party at the bar down the street. She then proceeded to invite the two unsuspecting friends to said party, who had reluctantly accepted the invitation after exchanging barely concealed apprehensive glances. Cana hadn't seem to notice their hesitance as she had just beamed at them while waiting for their response. In the end they simply couldn't say no to such a huge grin.

It was now Friday, the day before said party and Lucy and Levy were finally discussing it after shoving it to the back of their minds for the past week. They were just about to come to a consensus when they both perked up at the sound of two raps coming from the living room, signifying that someone was knocking on their front door. Both their eyes lit up and they practically ran to the door, Lucy getting there first and swinging the door open to reveal their blue-haired internet friend standing there, in the flesh, with a large smile on her face.

The three squealed excitedly as Lucy and Levy practically attacked their guest with a hug that had them all almost stumbling over.

"You're here!" Levy chimed.

"I'm here!" Juvia echoed excitedly.

They let go of their friend to allow her to walk into the apartment with her blue suitcase in tow, rolling it in while the two flooded her with questions including (but not limited to) how her flight was and if she's enjoying Hargeon despite only being here for a couple hours.

"I can't believe you actually came!" Lucy stated excitedly when they had finally gotten Juvia settled in and they now sat on the living room couch.

"I _really_ wanted 8 Island," Juvia giggled. "And I also wanted to see you guys! I haven't seen you in person since last year's AniCon."

"Yeah," Lucy sighed. "You're going again this year, right?"

"Of course," Juvia replied instantly. "Gray goes every year, so I must," she gushed.

"Right," Lucy giggled.

"So what are we doing this weekend? Besides going to 8 Island," Juvia beamed.

Lucy and Levy blanked at the question. They had been excited for their YouTuber friend's visit but hadn't really planned anything other than collaboration videos.

"Well…" Levy started hesitantly. "We have a friend that's throwing a party tomorrow but we weren't planning on going 'cause people."

Juvia instantly sat up at the mention of a party. "We're going!" she stated excitedly, causing the two others to exchange looks. Juvia looked at them with a bored expression. "We're _going_ ," she repeated firmly. "I want to go to a college party!"

Levy and Lucy sighed, not wanting to disappoint their guest. "Okay, I guess we're going," Levy said, defeated.

"Awesome," Juvia's grin returned. She got up and walked over to her giant suitcase, where she fumbled with it a bit before taking out a bag. She unzipped it and revealed a camera inside, which she took out and turned back to the two girls on the couch with a large grin. "Now," she beamed. "Collabs?"

Lucy squealed and jumped off the couch to get her own camera. "Yes! I have so many ideas."

"Speaking of videos," Juvia looked at Lucy with a suggestive grin. "I keep seeing 'NaLu' hashtags on Twitter. You and Natsu are a crazy viral ship in the community right now," she chuckled at the blonde who turned crimson, stopping suddenly at the information.

"Really?!" She swung her hands over her face in embarrassment. "That means he probably definitely saw it! Oh god that was a mistake," Lucy sighed dejectedly.

"I don't think he'd have a negative reaction to that," Levy argued. "If anything I think he should be grateful you shouted him out on your channel," she clarified.

"Agreed," Juvia stated. "When Gray… _shouted me out_ ," she said with barely concealed excitement. "I gained a ton of subs. He's probably experiencing the same thing."

"Who knows, maybe he checked out your channel and he's a fan now," Levy giggled and Juvia nodded enthusiastically in agreement.

Lucy's fangirl brain nearly shut down at the thought of Natsu actually being a fan of her. Being aware of her existence. Watching her content. Liking her channel as much as she enjoyed his.

Nah, that only happened in fanfiction.

"Ughh I don't wanna think about it anymore," Lucy muttered, trying to forget about that embarrassing video once more.

"Don't worry about it too much," Juvia walked over and supportively patted the blonde on the back. "Either way everyone's going to forget about it in a week or two anyway. That's usually how it works."

"I guess that's true," Lucy gave her a small smile. "It's still on the internet forever though!"

Levy sighed and giggled at her overthinking. "It's _fine_. Stop worrying."

"You're right. You're right," Lucy declared with questionable confidence.

"Levy _is_ right," Juvia agreed. "Now let's do a video, yeah?"

Lucy let out a deep breath, finally shoving the doubtful thoughts to the back of her mind before smiling brightly at the thought of finally recording with Juvia. "Yeah. What should we do first?"

Before Juvia could answer Lucy's phone vibrated from the back pocket of her black jeans. She placed her camera on the coffee table to take it out and check her notifications.

Her eyes nearly bugged out of her skull as she read the notification on the lock screen.

Her legs turned to jelly and she collapsed into a heap on the ground, Juvia's and Levy's eyes instantly darting to the blonde on the floor.

"Lucy?!"

"What happened?!" They rushed to her side, and she simply pointed lifelessly at the spot on the floor where her phone landed, shocked eyes fixed to the ceiling.

They both looked over to the phone. Levy reached over and picked it up, pressing the home button to see the lock screen. Both their jaws dropped slightly before they exchanged knowing smirks.

 **Natsu has followed you on Twitter.**

"Lucy! This is amazing!" Juvia exclaimed. She knew Lucy only got follower notifications when the follower was verified, so there was no doubt in her mind this was Natsu from Fairy Tail.

"She can't hear you, I think her soul just left her body," Levy chuckled, sporting a large grin.

She was _so_ glad Lucy accidentally posted that video.

* * *

 **Who's ready to party?**

 **Natsu and Lucy, that's who.**

 **Oh, and Levy. And Gajeel. And Gray. And Juvia. And Erza. And Jellal.**

 **See you all next week (hopefully) ;D**


	4. Chapter 4

**OhmygodIlovekpopwhathaveIdone**

* * *

Three young women danced around the living room of the small apartment as a K-pop song on Lucy's playlist blared through the speakers of the TV, playing catchy tunes you just couldn't help but move to. Clothes were strewn about all over the room as they "got ready" for Cana's party they were supposed to be going to in an hour, though neither of them seemed to be in any rush to leave the comfort of Lucy and Levy's living room where there was already good food, music, and company. Once Juvia had pulled out a wine bottle from her suitcase, all productivity was flung out the window. By their third glass they'd found themselves having a party of their own in the small space.

15 minutes into their little dance party, it was Juvia who seemed to remember why their clothes were everywhere and stopped suddenly.

"Wait! We have to go to your friend's party!"

"Party?" Lucy halted her dancing to look innocently to her roommate, who had stilled as well at the mention of where they were supposed to be going tonight.

She met Lucy's gaze with an equally fake dumbfounded expressions before they both simultaneously looked at their visibly unamused guest. "What party?"

Juvia sighed and picked up the TV remote from the coffee table, turning the music down and earning some whines as a result. "The party we're going to. _All_ of us," she reminded them firmly.

Levy and Lucy muttered their protests in vain as they flopped down on the couch. "I don't even have any good clothes," Lucy murmured.

"That's a lie," Levy said almost instantly. "You have a great sense of style when you actually try."

"Not helping," Lucy deadpanned. "And why try when there's no one to impress?"

"Well maybe you'll find someone you'll want to impress at this party," Juvia said simply, rifling through Lucy's pile of clothes on the other couch.

"I'm not interested in looking good for anyone unless they look like Natsu Dragneel," Lucy sighed, the alcohol in her system loosening her filter for the moment.

"Then look good for yourself because you can," Juvia grinned, lightly tossing an article of clothing at the blonde's chest.

Lucy frowned at the sudden fabric resting on her torso and lifted it so she could see what Juvia had thrown to her. She smiled at Juvia's choice of clothing and hopped off the couch.

"Okay. You win."

Levy got up a moment later, walking over to her pile of clothes and plucking an orange dress from the stack. "Guess that means I'm going too," she sighed.

Juvia beamed at her two friends, relieved and grateful. "Amazing," she giggled, looking through her own clothes now. "Now get ready, we have a party to go to."

* * *

Natsu basically collapsed on the ground of the hotel room, Gray casually stepping over him to walk further into the space they'd be staying in for the week. He turned slightly to snicker at his half-dead roommate before whipping out a small camera from the pocket of his black hoodie, turning it on and holding the lens at arm's length from his face.

"So we just got to Hargeon," He walked back over to where Natsu lay groaning in agony from the flight _and_ a taxi ride, leaned down slightly and turned the camera in Natsu's direction to broadcast his suffering. "... And Natsu's already dead."

"Fuck off," Natsu muttered, the sound coming out muffled as his face was currently making intimate contact with the floor.

Gray chuckled and aimed the camera back to his face. "We're going to a party soon, I'll probably record some of that. I'll see you guys then," he gave a bright smile and turned off the camera, turning to look at Natsu. "Get up, you damn pyro. We have to leave soon."

"I think I'm good here. Go on without me," he moaned.

"I would, but then Erza would kill me. _Again_ ," Gray shuddered.

After a few minutes, Natsu found the will to stand while Gray was unpacking some of his things, only to stumble over to his hotel bed and flop face-first onto it.

"Give me like an hour. I'll be good then."

"You have 30 minutes before that she-demon busts in here expecting us both to be ready to go," Gray deadpanned.

Natsu groaned at the validity of that statement. Why had he agreed to go on this trip again? He was sure Cana would've been content with a Skype call. He fumbled off the bed and hobbled over to the window, opening the shades to get a view of the city they were in from the 10th floor. It wasn't anything too extravagant, but it was a nice looking town. Unlike Magnolia, a suburban area could be seen amongst the rows of buildings, showing just how small of a city Hargeon was. The streets below were dimly lit and were less busy than he was used to, and it was kind of nice. This place was like a slower, more peaceful version of Magnolia.

He stayed at the window for a few more minutes before finally deciding it was time to get ready to leave, and by the time Erza was banging on their door the two were just about good to go. Gray was rolling up the sleeves of his button-up shirt and Natsu was wrapping his white scarf around his neck, matching nicely with his fitted red t-shirt as he opened the door to reveal a beautifully dressed Erza. Her black bodycon dress was the perfect balance of trendy and casual, the low neckline showing off her impressive assets while the hem that went a decent distance above the knee showed a nice amount of the redhead's long legs. Wendy stood beside her, a tad more modestly dressed but still looking great in her casual green sleeveless dress. Gajeel leaned against the opposite wall of the hall, looking grumpy as ever in a simple white t-shirt paired with an unzipped leather jacket.

Erza beamed at the two in the doorframe of their room. "You look great. Cana will be happy to see us."

"You guys look good!" Wendy agreed with a bright grin.

"We're walking to this party right?" Natsu questioned, praying for her answer to be "yes".

"Well it is just down the street, I don't see the need to take a cab," Erza stated, Gajeel and Natsu doing joyful backflips in their mind at the news.

"Best news I've heard all day," Natsu sighed in relief.

"Let's just get this over with," Gajeel huffed from behind the two girls.

Erza led the way down the hall, a group of smiling faces (with the exception of Gajeel) following close behind.

"Alright guys, we have a party to crash."

* * *

By the time Lucy, Levy and Juvia got to the bar, dressed to impress and disappointingly sober, the place was full of college students, so many that some had gathered in groups in front of the building, likely to escape the crowd of people that were inside. The music inside was so loud they had been able to hear it well before they even got there, and now that they were standing in front of the building the bass was rattling them to the very core.

"I changed my mind. I think I'd rather stay home," Levy choked, sobering instantly at the sight of so many people in one space.

"Nope, we're doing this together," Lucy shot back, linking arms with the blunette. Levy gave her an apprehensive look, but Lucy ignored it. There was no backing down now. They were here, standing in front of the building, so Lucy felt they may as well try to have a good time.

Juvia squealed in excitement as she gazed at the packed bar. "I've never seen a party like this in Oak Town!" She grabbed both of the girl's hands and basically ran into the building, dragging the two less-than-elated girls with her. "Let's go!"

As soon as they walked through the doors the music got even louder, and the atmosphere around them completely changed. The only source of light was the beams of light that spanned randomly across all corners of the bar in all different colors allowing the view of silhouettes of people, and that was pretty much it.

Levy turned to Lucy and said something, but Lucy couldn't hear over all the activity. She learned closer to her ear. "How are we gonna find Cana here?" She yelled, still barely being heard above the music.

"I have a feeling she'd be by the bar," Lucy shouted back, pointing over to an area that seemed to actually have some stable light. She turned to tell Juvia where they should go, but was shocked to see that she was no longer by their side. She felt panic steadily rise within her at the sudden disappearance of her friend, only for it to die out when a circle of light briefly illuminated Juvia's face in the distance, dancing her heart out amongst a crowd of people and looking like she was on top of the world.

Lucy and Levy giggled at their enthusiastic friend, deciding she was fine and they'd check up on her later. Lucy grabbed Levy's hand and directed the two towards the bar with some difficulty, lightly pushing their way through the crowd until they finally caught sight of the bar only a few feet away. Just as she expected, Cana sat there downing a shot of some clear liquid, clad in a bikini top and short denim cutoffs. A crooked tiara sat on her brunette head with the number "21" in the center, and a tall built man sat close beside her with an arm slung around her shoulder, who Lucy assumed to be Cana's boyfriend.

The two approached the brunette with wide grins, and Cana saw them immediately, breaking into a huge grin when they made eye contact. She quickly hopped off the barstool to embrace the two in a huge hug that they eagerly returned.

"You guys came!" She exclaimed.

"Thanks for inviting us!" Lucy shouted back with a grin. Cana let them go and rushed to the bar for a moment, scuttling back to them in a second, this time with two shot glasses full of what looked like the same clear liquid she had been drinking earlier. She gave each of them one glass before going back to get her own, filling it back up and returning to the girls who eyed their glasses quizzically before looking back up to Cana, who merely stood beaming in front of them with her own glass before raising it above her head.

"Drink!" She shouted excitedly, bringing the glass to her lips and throwing the liquid to the back of her throat. Lucy and Levy looked at each other for a moment before shrugging with a "fuck it" attitude and mirroring Cana's actions.

Lucy would soon realize the glass had been full of straight-up vodka when it immediately assaulted all of her senses. She quickly swallowed it to rid her mouth of the horrible taste, only for it to burn the whole way down her throat, nearly turning her into a coughing, sputtering mess. Levy coughed as soon as she managed to down the strong liquid, though it was nothing compared to the spicy ramen Lucy made her eat for a video weeks ago.

Cana giggled at the wincing faces of the two girls and shoved another shot into both of their hands before shouting "Enjoy the party!" and returning to her boyfriend's side.

They exchanged looks once more before hesitantly taking the second shot, still not quite used to the sensation. The vodka burned another line of fire down Lucy's throat, but she recovered quicker than last time, finding Levy's hand again. "We should find Juvia!"

"Good idea," Levy loudly voiced back, allowing herself to be led to the dance floor. Lucy didn't seem to take into account that she was with another person and as such they should be more careful when weaving through the crowds, and Levy struggled to avoid bumping into people.

Before they made it, a body suddenly stepped into Levy's path, but Levy couldn't move out of the way in time before she bumped hard into the side of a large body, resulting in an annoyed grunt from the guy she'd almost barreled into. She immediately looked up to get a view of the man's face in the dim light to apologize, but the words died in her throat as she made eye contact with fierce red eyes and a ubiquitously pierced face glaring at her.

She'd never seen such an intense looking man.

"Watch it, shrimp," his gruff voice cut straight through the music, reaching Levy's ears with ease.

…

Wait, did he just call her _shrimp_?

Her face immediately shifted into a scowl but before she could yell her snarky comeback Lucy had pulled her away from the man, totally oblivious to what had just happened. She huffed and decided to leave it alone, knowing she'd likely never see him again so it probably wasn't even worth it.

After a bit the two were able to find Juvia in the crowd, still dancing the night away with the biggest of smiles on her face as she moved in tune with the music. She hadn't seen them until they were directly in front of her, her smile growing impossibly wider when she found her friends.

"Hey! There you guys are!" She shouted. "Dance with me!"

In a matter of minutes Lucy and Levy had gone from awkwardly swaying lightly to also moving their bodies to the music blasting in their ears without a care in the world, the effect of their vodka shots beginning to take action and loosening their inhibitions ever so slightly. They hadn't had enough to be drunk, but they felt better than they did when they were completely sober and that was enough.

She wasn't sure how long the three of them spent lost in the moment, and she didn't care as she danced among many bodies at this raging party with her best friend and their internet friend who they hadn't seen in nearly a year. Times like this did not happen often, and she was going to enjoy every moment.

She opened her eyes for the first time in what seemed like forever and scanned the crowd of people, the energy of the crowd adding to her own as she grinned blissfully and moved to the beat of the electronic dance song blaring through the speakers.

And then her eye caught onto something particularly interesting in the distance over Juvia's shoulder.

She was sure it was either her eyes or the dim light that was deceiving her but she could've sworn she'd just seen a familiar looking head of pink hair before they were swallowed up in the crowd.

Could that have been…?

Nah. That was definitely the light obscuring her view or something.

But that guy looked _exactly_ like Natsu Dragneel of Fairy Tail.

Geez, how strong was that vodka?

She reluctantly brushed it off, noting Levy and Juvia didn't seem to notice a thing as they continued to dance to the music. She probably just needed some air.

"I'm gonna go outside for a bit, I need a break from this crowd," she yelled to her two friends, who voiced their "okay" in unison before returning their full attention to the song. She gave them one last smile before finding her way to the door where she came from through the crowd, taking one last look at where she'd found the Natsu doppelgänger before leaving.

This time she could've sworn she'd seen Gray Fullbuster.

She was never drinking again.

She walked through the front doors and the brisk night air hit her instantly, though she reveled in it after being in the cramped, hot bar for the better part of an hour. Though with the cool wind went the previous energy she had earlier when she was surrounded by a party aura. No one was really outside anymore save for some people who were smoking next to the building.

She took a deep breath, instantly relaxing when she breathed out. She didn't realize how much being around that many people had taken out of her until now. Right now all she really wanted to do was go home and curl up on her bed with a manga, away from crowds of drunk college students brushing up against her at every moment. It was similar to how she felt after conventions where she often was surrounded by multitudes of people looking to talk with her or get her to sign something of theirs. While she did love her fans, she did feel a sense of relief at the end of days like that she was finally alone in her room. She was an introvert through and through.

She leaned against the cold brick wall, pulling out her phone to let Levy know she wasn't going back inside in favor of going home, figuring she'd be fine with Juvia.

She quickly sent the text and put her phone back in her pocket before getting off the wall and beginning the short walk back home.

"Hey pretty thing, where're you going with all that?"

She looked over her shoulder to side-eye the man who was catcalling her, a clearly drunk ginger-haired man who looked about her age, likely someone from Cana's party. For a moment she thought he would actually be cute if it weren't for the way he was trying to get her attention right now. She turned back around and kept walking, opting to just ignore him.

"Hey! I'm talkin' to you!"

Lucy froze for a split second when she felt a hand grab her arm, the self-defense tactics she learned when she was younger flooding her brain as she instantly turned her arm that was still trapped in a vice grip to twist the man's own arm in an unnatural direction before landing a swift kick to his groin. She gave a satisfied smirk when a groan escaped his lips and his grip loosened. He cowered over his assaulted nether regions and Lucy took this as her opportunity to turn and run away from the perverted drunk guy. She wasn't worried about a lanky guy like that taking her down, but she'd rather not take her chances in case he had some sort of weapon or something.

She heard him call out to her as she ran, though his voice sounded oddly different from before. She didn't pay it much mind. The sound of something clattering to the floor filled her ears, which Lucy decided what probably the man dropping something amidst his suffering, smug smirk returning for a moment as she continued to get as far away from the party as possible.

She was _so_ done with people for the night.

* * *

Cana's eyes widened into saucers when she caught sight of her friends from back home approaching her with wide grins. When she finally processed what was in front of her she practically threw herself at the four of them in a drunken embrace.

"Oh my God! You guys!" She cried, absolutely over the moon that they had come to her birthday party all the way from _Magnolia_.

"We had to come see you for your birthday," Erza smiled at the beaming brunette.

"Happy Birthday Cana!" Wendy, Gray and Natsu cheered in unison at the woman who looked like she was on the verge of tears.

"Gajeel's here too but he got lost 'cause he's an idiot," Natsu informed her casually. She laughed loudly at his remark before bringing them all into a hug once more.

"I'm so happy right now," she choked, tears threatening to spill over her cheeks. They looked over her shoulder to give smiles of greeting to her boyfriend who sat there looking at Cana with an amused, yet happy expression.

"How's it going, Bacchus?" Gray asked the man on the barstool, who simply chuckled and downed the shot in his hand in response.

"Good," he replied after a moment. "Nice to meet you all in person."

"Likewise," Erza said back.

Cana released her friends and rushed over to the bar, waving a hand for them to follow her. "Celebratory drinks!" she exclaimed, smirking at a certain blunette. "You too, Wendy," she mused to the 17-year-old, filling a glass with vodka and handing it to Wendy who took it apprehensively.

"I-I don't know-"

"Don't worry about it! You'll be 18 soon enough and I know the owner of the bar, you won't get in trouble," Cana reassured her. Wendy nodded slightly and took a small sip of the liquid from the shot glass before immediately spitting it back out and cringing at the cup. Cana giggled and took the glass away. "Okay, maybe another time," she chuckled.

Cana poured shots for the rest of them, handing a glass to each before they all raised their hands in unison.

"To Cana!" Erza shouted excitedly before they all downed the vodka shots with ease.

20 minutes later found them all giddily making their way to the dance floor, blissfully tipsy save for Wendy and ready to dance the night away.

And Natsu did just that, reveling in the energy around him, completely in his element in the crowd as he laughed and joked and danced surrounded by his friends, loving the blaring of the bass-heavy music and crowds of people surrounding him, likely enjoying the party just as much as he was. He'd lost track of time with how much fun he was having.

And then a striking figure amongst the crowd caught his eye.

Long blonde hair swayed as her shapely figured moved in tune to the music, and Natsu couldn't bring himself to look away, completely mesmerized by the way she swung her hips in her fitted maroon t-shirt dress that went halfway above the knee, exposing flawless thighs and a slim waist Natsu couldn't seem to look away from.

Then she turned around, giving him a good look at her face and his jaw nearly dropped to the floor when he realized who she was.

* * *

Erza stood outside of the bar after sneaking away from the dance floor, taking a break from the busyness in the building to take in the atmosphere of the town she hadn't seen in years. Being in Hargeon brought back so many amazing memories, though with them also came the ones she'd rather forget. While she'd had time to move on from the past, she still couldn't bring herself to completely wipe it from her mind.

Specifically, it was difficult to erase a certain head of blue hair she'd spent so much time with in her youth.

She knew she needed to, as he was not the same person he was before and would probably never go back to being the friend she knew and loved dearly.

"Erza?"

She cursed herself for still being able to clearly hear his voice in her thoughts.

Wait…

"Erza? Is that you?"

She turned her head so fast it almost made her dizzy, noting the familiar tone, mind filling with nostalgia and pain at the sound of it.

And there he was, standing there next to the building with a cigarette in his hand, and under any other circumstances she'd have laughed at his gobsmacked expression.

Though she probably looked the same way.

"Jellal," she breathed in utter disbelief.

"What are you doing here?"

"... I wanted to surprise Cana for her birthday. Why are you here?" She replied back as casually as she could muster.

"I live in this building," he gestured to the structure next to the bar.

"I see." He lifted his hand to place the cigarette between his lips, and Erza eyed the action with a frown. "Smoking isn't good for you, Jellal."

"I know."

Her frown deepened at the simple response.

"I'm better, you know," he continued suddenly, throwing Erza slightly off guard. She resisted the urge to smile after the initial shock, noting the importance of his statement. She saw the truth in it written all over his face. For the first time in what seemed like forever she actually saw life in his eyes and he actually looked put together in his clean shirt and jeans.

"That is good to hear."

...

Silence.

"Um… I never thought I'd get the chance to do this, but somehow you're here right now for the first time in years and I'm not sure if I'll ever see you again after this so I'm just gonna say it," Jellal stated suddenly, dropping the cigarette bud on the floor and putting it out with his boot before moving closer to Erza. She struggled to keep a neutral expression when he stood directly in front of her with the intense look she had loved for so long.

"Okay," she choked out.

"I'm sorry for everything I did to you when I was… messed up," Jellal began. "Every time I think about back then I feel like the worst person on earth," he let out a humorless chuckle, Erza retaining a stoic expression as he spoke. "And I know words are never gonna fix what I broke but I need you to know how sorry I am and how much I still lov-"

"It's okay," Erza cut him off suddenly. She knew what he was about to say but her heart simply would not be able to handle hearing it now. "I forgive you."

He met her gaze curiously for a moment before nodding in what seemed to be understanding before giving her a small smile. "I've seen you on YouTube. You really got big."

"I'm just very lucky," she hesitantly smiled back. He chuckled at her humble response before his expression regained seriousness, though with a new light in his eyes.

"Can I see you again?"

She resisted the urge to grin wider at the question. "I am in Hargeon for the week, so maybe," she replied simply. "I should go back inside. It was nice to see you again, Jellal."

She turned around swifty, grin coming in full force when she was sure he could no longer see her face as she strode back into the building.

For the first time since their teens, Erza was actually brimming with joy after an interaction with Jellal.

* * *

Either Cana put some weird shit in his drink or he'd just found Lucy, also known as Celestial on YouTube, at this party in bumblefuck Hargeon.

Christ, she was even hotter in person.

Asking himself what the hell he was doing just standing there staring, he immediately moved to approach her, until Cana grabbed his arm and dragged him over to where she was.

"Dance with me Natsu!"

He looked down at the drunk brunette, looking back over in a split second to where he'd found Celestial on the dance floor, only to grow bewildered when she suddenly wasn't where he had spotted her anymore. He looked frantically around the area before he finally found her pushing her way through the crowd, seemingly towards the exit.

"H-hey Cana, I think I'm gonna go outside for a bit to get some air," he said hastily, not waiting for her response before turning around to find the blonde beauty. Things like this only happened once in a lifetime and there was no way in hell he was missing his chance to meet _Celestial_ , the YouTuber he'd discovered only recently but had become a fan nonetheless.

It took him a while to push through the masses of people but eventually he had made his way to the front door of the bar, being hit with a gust of cold air that he ignored in favor of finding what he was looking for.

And then he saw her, meters away, along some guy who was stumbling behind her.

All assumptions of the guy being a friend of hers or something dissipated when he roughly grabbed her arm.

But just when Natsu was about to bust into a run to punch the guy who he decided was most certainly _not_ friendly, she did a swift string of moves and the man was suddenly a blubbering mess on the floor.

He gaped at how fast it had all happened before coming to his senses when she began to run away.

 _Crap!_

"Wait!" He yelled without thinking, quickly beginning to run in her direction, passing the man who still was a mess on the floor before giving up after a few seconds and calling it fate as she turned a corner and disappeared right before his eyes.

Well, of all missed opportunities this had to be the worst.

He turned to sulk back to the party, hoping to lift his crushed spirits when he stepped on something that clicked against his shoe at the contact. He furrowed his brow in curiosity when he spotted a card on the floor. He bent over slightly to pick it up and examine it.

No. Freaking. Way.

It looked like a school I.D. card for Hargeon University, and the picture on the left side contained the bright smile of the one and only Celestial. Next to the picture was the name "Lucy Heartfilia," further cementing Natsu's suspicions of who this card belonged to.

Well shit, now what?

* * *

 **Someone last chapter said something about wanting this fic to go M rated later so if this fic gets 500 reviews before the end I'll put a lemon in this story (putting a review cap on it mainly cause I'm super hesitant about writing smut as I've never done it beforelul).**

 **What happened with Juvia and Gray you ask? (or didn't ask idk did you ask if you did this applies to you)**

 **Find out next chapter!**

 **You're all amazing ok? ok.**

 **-if anyone needs me I'll be listening to BTS and EXO in a small corner of the world-**


	5. Chapter 5

**Sorry! Finals were cray but hey I'm back with a new chapter yay~**

 **-okay that rhymed and I didn't even mean for it to**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

 _Levy and Juvia had been happily dancing to the tune of the dance song blasting throughout every corner of the bar when an arm suddenly slung around Levy's shoulder. She instantly tensed at the sudden contact, but relaxed when she saw Cana beaming beside her._

" _Hey Cana!" Levy greeted her. "This is our friend Juvia!" She shouted over the music, gesturing to her fellow blunette friend who waved and grinned at Cana after being introduced. "Juvia, this is the birthday girl!"_

" _Happy Birthday! This is a great party," Juvia stuck a hand out to shake Cana's hand, but the brunette merely stared at it for a second before grabbing it and pulling the unsuspecting girl into a hug._

" _Nice to meet ya Juvia!"_

 _After a moment of recovery from the initial shock of the sudden action Juvia gleefully returned the embrace before both pulled away with matching bright smiles._

" _You guys wanna meet my friends?" Cana asked them, her eyes lighting up instantly at the mention of her companions._

" _Sure!" Both girls giggled at Cana's enthusiasm. The brunette's grin doubled in size as she looked around the nearby crowd, hand reaching out to wave at someone behind the two girls._

" _Well right now I only know where one of them is, but no doubt you'll meet the others while you're here!" She gestured for the person behind the two to come over to her before she suddenly looked at them with a slightly confused frown. "Where's your other friend?"_

" _Lucy got tired and left," Levy shrugged, recalling the text she'd received from the blonde a few minutes ago. "She had a good time though!"_

" _Oh okay!" Cana's smile returned. Her attention shifted back to their surroundings and she scanned the nearby crowd. Spotting a white shirt behind the girls, she grinned wider._

 _Cana cupped both hands around her mouth and yelled as loud as she could to get him to hear her, "Gray! Over here!"_

 _Before Juvia or Levy could contemplate the familiarity of the name the brunette was reaching around Juvia, her arm returning to her side with another person's arm in her grip. Gray stumbled a little at the force of her tug, regaining balance after a moment before standing up straight._

" _What's up Cana?"_

" _These are my new friends!" She yelled giddily, gesturing to the two girls while simultaneously neglecting to notice their jaws basically dropping to the floor._

 _Gray, who had been facing Cana this whole time, turned in the direction of her gesture with a bright smile before his own eyes widened into saucers and all words of greeting died in his throat._

" _G-G—" Juvia tried to speak, but words seemed to fail her as well._

 _Cana however was too drunk to realize anything was off and spoke normally, smiling brightly at the girls. "This is-"_

"Gray _?!" Levy yelled incredulously._

 _Cana's brows furrowed in confusion for the second time that night. "You guys met already? Cool!"_

 _The mention of his name mixed with the fact that he was currently standing before her in real life flooded Juvia's brain with her suppressed fangirl memories, one of them being_ his video _._

 _Her face turned beet red as she remembered his "shout out"._

 _Nope. She couldn't handle this. She needed to escape immediately before she turned into a puddle on the dance floor._

" _Uh- Er-" Juvia stammered hastily. She suddenly grabbed Levy's arm, "Sorry! Gotta go!"_

 _She moved as fast as her wobbly legs could take her, poor Levy being dragged through the still-packed crowd for the second time that night. As soon as she pushed through the exit doors Juvia let out a huge breath she hadn't even known she'd been holding and began trying her hardest to regain her composure._

" _Okay, what the hell just happened?" Levy spoke normally, no longer needing to scream in order to be heard._

 _Juvia was also attempting to add up the last few moments into something that made sense herself. Had they seriously just run into Gray of Fairy Tail, of all people at this party in Hargeon at the time where she was coincidentally visiting her internet friends for the week?_

" _I think we just saw Gray," she stated dumbly._

 _There was no way for her to able to keep her cool knowing she was in the same room as him. She damn near almost melted every time he_ smiled _in his videos._

" _Ok good, so I wasn't just hallucinating it. Why is he here!?" Levy asked excitedly, grabbing the taller bluenette's shoulders and shaking slightly. "And why did we run away?! Isn't he your favorite YouTuber?"_

" _I panicked," Juvia admitted sheepishly. "There's no way I would've been able to talk to him!" She cried, covering her flustered face with her hands. "That was fun, but we need to go. There's no way I'm going back in there!"_

 _Levy merely stared in confusion at her, but her eyes lit up nonetheless at the mention of going back home. As fun as the party was, it didn't beat the fun of staying home with a good book. She would feel kind of bad leaving Cana so suddenly like that, though she doubted the brunette cared at all. And Levy didn't really watch much Fairy Tail at all anyway. But would she be doing Juvia a disservice by not taking this opportunity to meet Gray when he was this close?_

 _She released her friend's shoulders. "You_ sure _don't wanna go back and meet Gray?"_

" _Absolutely not!" Juvia cried almost immediately. "I will actually die if I face him again," she clarified, face still buried in her hands._

 _Well that was that._

 _Levy chuckled and shook her head at her friend's ridiculousness, gently nudging her in the direction of the apartment as they began to walk home. "I have no idea how we just found Gray of all people at this party, but what I do know for sure is that you're gonna regret this later," she deadpanned._

" _I can't meet him yet Levy! I'm not mentally prepared!" Juvia looked up at the stars dreamily. "The timing isn't right yet, I need to be ready for it!"_

" _Lucy's gonna flip when she hears about this."_

 _Both had been too caught up in their conversation to notice a certain pink-haired male sulk past them as they made their way back home._

* * *

"And that's what you missed."

…

"There's no way that happened," Lucy laughed after a moment at the end of Levy's summation of their night.

Lucy refused to believe that Juvia and Levy just _happened_ to run into Gray at a party in _Hargeon_ , and he _happened_ to be good friends with the drunk girl they had _happened_ to coincidentally meet and befriend a couple weeks ago.

Not to mention this happened right after she left, apparently.

"It did sort of seem like a dream," Juvia muttered, resulting in an amused eye roll from Levy on the other side of the table.

"How much did you guys drink last night?" Lucy asked suspiciously.

"We didn't- well whatever." Levy let out an exasperated sigh. "We met Gray, and rather than approach him, we ran away. That's the part _I_ find hard to believe."

"I told you! I would've _died_ ," Juvia exclaimed, shoving a piece of toast in her mouth.

Lucy giggled at the dramatic blunette. "Well, I believe that."

"Oh God what if he thinks we're total freaks after that?!" Juvia cried, realizing that they had probably looked so strange running away like that last night.

Levy ignored her outburst to voice a thought she'd been pondering for the past few moments. "Doesn't Cana live right down the hall?"

"I think so, why?" Lucy asked with a brow raised.

"What if he's there right now?!" Juvia cried, as if reading Levy's mind.

"What if it's not just him? Everyone in Fairy Tail could be a few feet away from us at this very moment," Levy piped excitedly, imagining both Lucy's and Juvia's reactions to meeting their long-time favorite YouTubers face-to-face. It would be _gold_.

"You guys are taking this joke way too far," Lucy deadpanned, struggling to believe Fairy Tail would ever step foot in this town.

Then again, there was that guy who looked suspiciously like Natsu at the party yesterday…

She shook her head at the thought. There was no way.

But she also thought she saw someone who looked like Gray…

"Shall we go to Cana's right now?" Levy suggested, though immediately had second thoughts after. She was curious, but she wasn't sure she was initiate-social-interaction curious.

"What— Right now?!"

Juvia nearly choked. "We can't! W-what if Gray's there?!"

"Then Lucy will believe us," Levy said simply, internally scolding herself at the end of her sentence. _Dammit Levy stop talking!_ "And we can _meet_ them. Isn't that exciting?"

Lucy's heart had skipped a beat at the thought of knocking on Cana's door and being greeted by _Natsu_. Not that that would ever happen.

There was just _no way_.

"Well, shall we go?" Levy eyed the blonde.

"We can't just—" Before Lucy could wave off the request as nonsense and opt to stay where she was, the sound of the doorbell rang throughout the apartment, effectively catching the attention of all occupants.

"I'll get it!" Lucy shot up from her seat, saving herself from answering at all. She made her way into the living room and swung open the front door.

* * *

Natsu, who had finally awakened from sleep about an hour ago was slouched on Cana's couch scrolling through Twitter as he waited for Gray and Cana to stop talking so they could go back to the hotel and actually get ready for the day. Gajeel got bored and left earlier than them last night, and _way_ more sober. The rest of them decided to keep partying with Cana until the early hours of the morning, and ultimately ended up crashing in her living room at the end of the night.

He _kind of_ remembered what happened when he returned to the party after nearly chasing Lucy down the street like a straight-up weirdo. Gray was freaking out like an idiot over running into Juvia at the party (which he wouldn't have believed if it weren't for the fact that he had just nearly met Lucy _freaking_ Heartfilia). He told him what had just happened to him with Lucy, at which point they both simultaneously turned to focus their attention on Cana, who seemed to be completely clueless as to what was going on and merely giggled at how in sync their head turn was.

They explained everything to Cana, who told them that Lucy went to the same school as her, something Natsu had known by now after seeing her I.D. Card, and that Juvia was a friend that was visiting.

The whole thing was so laughably coincidental that several shots later, they had truly believed the last hour had just been part of some dream.

"Oh this is great," Natsu's thoughts were interrupted by Cana's voice to his left. "I can introduce you guys, if you want. I think they live down the hall!"

"Er- Thats—" Gray began to stammer nervously.

Saving Gray from sputtering more nonsense, Natsu was suddenly sitting straight up on the couch, curious about the topic of conversation. "Uh, who lives down the hall?" he asked, having a fairly clear idea of who they were talking about.

"Your future girlfriends!" Cana grinned at her guest.

"Wh-" Upon hearing the implication, Natsu suddenly sat up, remembering the plastic card he'd found yesterday.

"Uh, actually, I forgot to tell you," he started, taking Lucy's I.D. out of his pocket and walking over to Cana to show it to her. "Lucy dropped this yesterday. Could you give it back to her?"

Cana looked at the card for a moment and began to nod before she stopped suddenly and an evil smirk graced her features, eyes locking with Natsu's. "She lives two doors down. Give it to her yourself."

"W-why me? Doesn't she know you?" Okay yes, Natsu wanted to meet her, but not until he was freshly showered and not sluggishly hungover.

"Well she knows you too, doesn't she?" Cana winked. "And you should go with him, Gray. Juvia's probably there too."

Natsu or Gray could make any decisions though he took notice the absences in the room and thanked the gods for a distraction. "Uh, where's Erza and Wendy?" He asked, effectively curving the subject but genuinely curious.

"Wendy's still asleep I think. The poor girl can't handle her alcohol," Cana chuckled. "Erza left a little while ago. Said something about enjoying the Hargeon scenery. That was totally a lie though."

"Why do you say that?" Gray asked, flopping down on a nearby sofa chair.

"'Cause our old buddy Jellal lives not 20 minutes away from here," She replied easily. "I bet they met up or something last night. Kinda hard to believe she'd still want anything to do with him though."

"Why not? Aren't they dating or something?" Natsu didn't really know much about Erza's past before she came to Magnolia, but she did mention a Jellal guy once or twice when she talked about her childhood. The way she talked about him combined with the blush and sad smile that would take over her face had everyone convinced Jellal _had_ to have been her boyfriend.

"I honestly don't know, but she told me they had some problems before she left Hargeon. That Jellal was somethin' else back then," Cana clarified. "But if she's sneaking out to hang with him they probably worked it out." She shrugged.

"Huh. Well good for her."

"Yup. Now go give Lucy her card. That thing's important, ya know. It should be returned asap," Cana smirked, successfully bringing the conversation right back to where it was before. "Bring Gray with you. Moral support or whatever."

Natsu sighed in defeat. "Even if I did go, I can't bring Gray with me. He'd just make them run away like he did last night," he snickered.

Before Gray could shoot back with a snarky remark Cana grabbed a clueless arm and began dragging a stumbling Natsu across the living room to her front door.

"H-hey!" She swung the door open with her free hand, and with a strong swing from her other hand Natsu was successfully out of the apartment despite his questioning and lame protests, Lucy's I.D. card in hand.

"Go by yourself then. Two doors down, apartment 2C." Cana winked at him with an evil smirk. "Go get 'er, dragon," she finished with a grin.

"Wh—!" Natsu couldn't even get a word out before the door was closed in front of his face. He could vaguely hear Gray laughing his ass off from behind the door, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to bust in and punch the grin right off his face. Though the click he heard right after probably meant Cana had locked the door, and while it did seem worth the possible property damage to hit Gray, the fact that Cana was able to physically able to drag him out of her home made him think it wouldn't really be a great idea to piss her off. Why were all their female friends so damn tough?

"Not cool!" Natsu yelled futilely at the locked door. No response. It was probably useless to try and get back in while he still had this damn card. He sighed heavily in defeat and began to try and steel himself for this unexpected encounter. He stepped back from the door and turned to look down the hallway, eyes instantly locking on the "2C" sign engraved on a small square of metal attached to a door a couple feet away. _Celestial's_ front door. He hesitantly made his way over, stopping when he found himself face-to-face with Lucy Heartfilia's door. He raised a hand, ready to ring the bell, but stopped short right when he was about to make contact to whip out his phone and open the camera app, suddenly feeling very self-conscious. He looked at the screen, using it as a mirror as he began attempting to fix his messy locks and look presentable.

Natsu suddenly paused as he was running a hand through his hair, questioning his life decisions. Since when did he actually care about how he looked?! He shook his head at his actions and put his phone back in the pocket of his jeans. And why was he nervous? He was Natsu Dragneel goddammit, he wasn't afraid of anything! Raising his hand to the door once more, he steeled himself again and pressed the doorbell before he could think twice about it.

… Then he quickly bent down, slid the card under the door, and rounded the corner of the hallway as fast as his legs could take him.

So much for fearless Natsu.

He heard a door open from where he stood, followed by a pause. "Hello?" A familiar voice echoed throughout the hallway, reaching his ears and making his stomach drop even further. There was another moment of silence before he heard the sound of a door closing, at which point he let out a huge breath he hadn't even known he'd been holding. _You're so lame_ , he scolded himself before turning back into the hallway to make his way back to Cana's room.

His smooth escape back into Cana's apartment was going extremely well, that is, until Lucy's door swung open again just as he was about to pass by it. A blonde head stepped out and looked down the hallway, first in the direction of Cana's door, before turning the other way and freezing when she locked eyes with an equally shell-shocked Natsu Dragneel.

Silence.

"Uh, hey?"

* * *

 **I will return much sooner this time I promise T-T**

 **Well if anyone needs me I'll be over there probably listening to kpop... or something (BTS anyone?)**

 **Have a lovely day and don't forget to leave a review c:**


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry y'all this was probably one of the most emotionally stressful months of my life so I wasn't able to update as soon as I wanted to :/**

 **But hey I'm back now enjoy~**

* * *

"Uh, hey?"

 _So smooth, moron_.

Natsu silently thanked the gods Gray wasn't here to laugh at his lame statement.

Meanwhile, it was taking Lucy all of her brain power to figure out what, why, and _how_ the actual hell this particular encounter was happening right now. She had answered the door moments ago only to be greeted by an empty hallway, and had returned back inside to inform her current housemates of the possible ghost in their building until her eyes spotted something on the floor that wasn't there before. Lucy was surprised to see her school I.D card on the floor near the door and gave herself a mental slap for not keeping track of such an important piece of plastic. She didn't even remember dropping it there when she came home. She would have heard it hit the floor, right? Maybe someone slid it under the door? It sounded like a stretch, especially considering there weren't many people around here that knew where she lived, but she decided to go back out into the hallway and check just for good measure.

Lucy wasn't sure what she was expecting to find, but it was _not_ this.

Looking slightly disheveled, his hair messy and red t-shirt wrinkled in some places, the man of her fangirl dreams stood feet away in the hallway of her apartment building.

 _What the actual frick._

For the next few moments she could do nothing but stare in disbelief, finally coming to her senses when she saw him shift a little.

O _h right, I have to say words._

"... H-hey," she echoed dumbly.

"I uh… I watch your videos," he said with a small smile, sounding somewhat hesitant. She didn't blame him. She was acting so strange right now, not that she could help it.

 _Wait what did he just say he watches my videos..._

She paled.

… " _It'd be Natsu from Fairy Tail."_

He probably freaking watched that.

Mavis in heaven why had she uploaded that video.

Natsu seemed to notice her uncomfortable I'm-about-to-run-away-now reaction, expression faltering a bit before he quickly rushed to add more to his statement in an attempt to set her at ease. "I'm a fan!" He grinned widely again.

She instantly forgot why she was so flustered. Seeing that smile through a screen was already nearly too much for her to handle, and now she was witnessing it in person, mere feet away, as HD as humanly possible. Actually, this wasn't even HD. This was like, the highest D you could go.

This was real life D.

… She made a note to never say that out loud ever.

It hadn't actually been that long to her but judging by the weird look Natsu was starting to give her she finally came to her senses (for the most part) and came to terms with what was actually happening.

Natsu Dragneel, her favorite YouTuber and longtime internet crush was in the hallway of her apartment building. She was meeting him. Face to face. This was happening.

… In her _pajamas_.

She turned bright red as she realized how messy she looked in her huge old Pokemon t-shirt and cotton shorts. She hadn't even bothered to fix the jumbled mess of hair on her head, so her sloppy bun was basically hanging on the side of her head.

This was _not_ how she was supposed to look when she met her favorite YouTuber in the whole world.

"I-" she needed to escape ASAP. No one should have to see her like this, _especially_ not Natsu freaking Dragneel. Given, he didn't look very put together himself, but he somehow still looked hot! _How did he still look hot?!_

Once again forgetting how to say words, she let out an uncomfortable laugh and a small awkward wave before dashing right back into her apartment and slamming her door shut. As soon as she was safely inside she allowed her legs to turn to jello and her back slid down the wooden door until she reached a sitting position on the living room floor.

It took her a moment to realize Juvia and Levy standing before her at the door, looking as if they were going to implode with their held back laughter.

"Wow Lu." Levy said quickly, throwing her hand over her mouth to hold in the uncontrollable giggling.

" _Smooooth_ ," Juvia followed before bursting into cackling laughter, not even trying to hide her amusement.

"W-wh-" Lucy somehow reddened even more, "You guys heard that?!"

Levy nodded and pointed to the door. "Super thin walls."

A moment later the two bystanders both exploded into full blown laughter, no longer able to hold it in.

"H-hey!" Lucy cried over their cackling, mortified at what they had witnessed.

She pointed an accusing finger at Juvia. "I-It's not like you did any better yesterday with Gray!"

"I-I know I know, but _wow_ ," Juvia managed to breathe through her chuckles.

"Was I really that bad?!"

Levy placed a reassuring hand on Lucy's shoulder. "Not really. It could've been much worse. Don't sweat it."

The embarrassed blonde sighed and stood, dejectedly walking into the kitchen. Distractions. Distractions were good. "Ok idea: let's pretend the last five minutes never happened."

"Sounds good," Juvia smiled sympathetically.

"Ughh I need wine."

"Lu, it's 11am."

"Good point. Mimosa it is."

She walked over to the counter where they kept their alcohol and reached for the champagne, though before she could get it Levy swatted her hand away.

"No alcohol at 11am, Lu," she laughed, even more so at Lucy's whine when she sulked away from the counter. "Besides, we have to take Juvia to 8 Island today!"

Juvia immediately sobered at the mention of 8 Island. "Oh right!" She practically hopped into the kitchen. "Ok. Last five minutes are officially forgotten. When are we going?!"

"Soon," Levy chuckled at the blunette's enthusiasm. "We just had breakfast."

"Oh. Right," Juvia sighed with a disappointed pout.

"In the meantime," Lucy piped up, forcefully throwing her Natsu encounter to the back of her mind where it would hopefully never be seen again. She walked over to the table in the living room and picked up the camera that sat there, turning to grin at her two friends on the other side of the half-wall. "Wanna do a video?"

Juvia's smile instantly returned. "Yes!"

* * *

That night found the three friends in the living room of Levy and Lucy's apartment with the same wine from last night, only in much larger quantities considering the only party they were planning on attending tonight was their own, (poorly) singing and dancing around the living room table to the catchiest kpop songs as they took occasional sips of their alcoholic beverages.

It was around 10pm when they finally got tired of dancing, and opted instead to flop down on the couch and relax their drunk muscles. Juvia was holding her take-out bag of leftover 8 Island closely to her chest, wanting badly to eat it but also not wanting it to be gone forever.

"What am I gonna do guyssss?!" An intoxicated Lucy whined, sprawled out across the couch with her head on Levy's lap and legs on Juvia's. If she was any less intoxicated it would've been kind of uncomfortable for her to lay this way, but after several shots she felt like she was rolling around on a pile of goddamn angels.

… Which in retrospect doesn't sound very comfortable at all, but at the current moment in Lucy's head it sounded _heavenly_.

"About what?" Levy asked, creating awkward blond braids of various different sizes on her friend's head.

"I met Natsu today and _I looked so bad!_ "

Levy sighed. The poor girl sounded like she was on the verge of tears. "You didn't even look bad," she said, resting a palm on Lucy's knee reassuringly. "You were just super awkward is all."

"Agreeeed," Juvia chimed in, opening the bag slightly and popping a single fry in her mouth before closing it back up again.

"Whaddo I _doo_ ," Lucy whined again, earning a giggle from Levy. Despite being the smallest, she held her liquor better than anyone else in the room. Her ideal perfect night was sitting and relax with a good book in one hand and a wine glass in the other.

"Go find him and apologize for being such a weirdo," Levy joked.

"Adventure!" Lucy jolted from her spot on the couch, ruining the braid Levy had been working on. "Let's go find Fairy Tail!"

"Lucy I was totally joking."

Her statement seemed to fall on deaf ears, proven more solidly when drunk Juvia also shot up from the couch looking as excited as ever. "I wanna see my darling Gray again!"

Levy raised a brow. "Do you really think the end result will be any different this time?"

She was ignored again as Lucy and Juvia were now excitedly slipping their arms into their thin jackets while simultaneously trying to unlock the front door with intense teamwork. Sighing in defeat, she also rose from her seat and threw on her jean jacket. These girls were _not_ going out on their own in that state.

Eventually they made it outside, the cool spring evening air blowing gently against their faces as they began aimlessly wandering the campus at nearly eleven at night. Levy figures they were just going to walk around a bit before coming back, but they had barely even made it out of the residential area before their attention was brought to the frat houses. There was one in particular that seemed to be beaming with life. Colorful flashing lights moved across the windows and crowds of people surrounded it, making a ruckus that could be heard all the way from where the three girls stood, 4 buildings down.

"Oooh I wanna go _there_!" Juvia pointed excitedly at the frat party. It looked just like how it did in movies and TV shows, and she wanted so badly to experience it herself. This was what college was about, right?

"Hmm…" Lucy looked deep in thought as she stared at the house while pondering her options.

Sober Lucy would've refused immediately.

Sober Lucy would've turned and walked in the other direction as soon as she heard the music.

Sober Lucy wouldn't be caught dead at a frat party.

Drunk Lucy _lived_ for this.

"Let's goo~" the blonde grabbed both her friends hands and began to skip towards the house, Juvia excitedly keeping in step while Levy was a bit more apprehensive.

"Uh, are we sure about this?" Levy was still not at all buzzed enough to find any party appealing. Saturday nights were meant to be spent curled up in a dimly lit living room with a good story, _not_ in a packed crowd full of rowdy 20-somethings.

"C'mon Levy! It'll be so fun," Juvia piped, excitement growing as they got closer to the house.

"... _Ughh_ fine." She had already been dragged this far, might as well try to enjoy it. She pulled out the Fireball she stashed under her jacket before leaving just in case this exact situation happened, and downed the equivalent of two shots in one go. It wasn't as bad as Vodka, but the taste still had her cringing and immediately yearning for a water bottle as soon as all of it had burned its way down her esophagus. She was more of a wine gal.

A couple more feet later, they stood in front of the house, not surprisingly clouded with the scent of alcohol and illegal substances.

They rushed to the front door.

… Only to be stopped by some guy at the entrance.

"Woah. I'm really not supposed to let anyone in without a costume," an attractive ginger-haired student dressed somewhat like a lion told them. They all looked down at their plain tank tops and jeans, and in Levy's case a simple orange dress.

Sure enough, they looked around the front lawn and actually inspected the party-goers, finding people were indeed dressed in all types of different costumes.

 _Well shit, we don't have any costumes!_

"... Oh it's ok. Don't worry loves," the lion said quickly. It seemed Lucy said actually said that thought out loud. Flashing a wink and a flirty grin at the three girls, he reached into a bag behind him and pulled out three masks. "I can make an exception for beautiful ladies, but you have to wear these."

Lucy cautiously took the masks from the flirty guy's hand, giving one to Juvia and the other to Levy. They were simple masquerade masks that covered the top half of their faces with fancy designs. Lucy's had an added touch, a black feather that stood on the right side of it. If it weren't for their casual attire, she would've felt _so_ fancy right now. She could party with the motherfreakin' queen of Fiore tonight with this mask.

Plastic and glitter did not get any fancier than this, people.

"Enjoy the party," he gestured into the foyer with an open hand. "By the way, I'm Loke. I'll be here if you need me," he gave one last look to Lucy and winked once more before greeting the next guest, some guy in a full-body dinosaur costume with one of its generic plastic plush doll eyes missing. He made it seem intentional by stuffing red paper into the empty space.

Nice.

"Thank you!" The three of them said in unison and made their way into the booming house.

The inside was a completely different atmosphere than out. For one, the music was _way_ louder, the bass of whatever song was playing shaking them down to the core and rattling their bones. The space was much more confined, giving them little room to move without bumping into someone dancing or a couple making out, of which there were _plenty._ Despite the flashing lights that could be seen from outside the house, it was actually very dark when you were inside. The girls only saw one place where they could actually stand and move around, and that was on the makeshift dance floor in the middle of what looked like the common area of the house. There was also the kitchen, blocked off from the space by a half-wall and barely visible in the dim light. That was where the weed smell was the strongest.

They decided on the dance floor.

They gently pushed their way through the crowds of drunk, high, and cross-faded college students until they made it to the center of the common area where the music seemed to be loudest. It probably was futile to try and speak to each other while they were in there, so they opted for communicational grins before they got into a small circle and began to dance.

It seemed the dance gods were on their side tonight, because as soon as they started dancing the young DJ in the corner of the room began playing a song all three of them knew and loved. Their lazy occasional hip swings soon evolved to match the energy of everyone around them as they allowed the music and alcohol to take over their bodies and release their inhibitions for the night.

Soon they were dancing freely without a care in the world, even letting loose their small circle to move with others around them, all just as drunk as they were. Every minute or so the very lively DJ would yell something like ' _are y'all havin' fun tonight?!'_ and the entire house would shake with screams of ' _yeah!'_ along with general cheering, the girls eventually joining in on it after the first five minutes.

Levy and Juvia eventually left to find something to drink after expelling so much energy on the dance floor, while drunk Lucy opted to stay and dance some more with her local party-goers. They giggled and left her to her own devices, able to tell she wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.

And so there she was, swaying her hips and moving to the beat like she wasn't in the middle of a party full of people, but rather in her room where no one was watching. She had caught the attention of quite a few guys (and some girls) wanting to dance with her, but she politely denied them in favor of keeping to herself.

Well, until _he_ showed up.

She hadn't noticed him before, probably because he was dancing with a group of friends, like most people on the floor. But he got her attention now, alone and dancing right in front of her, mere feet away. She could barely see what he looked like, his costume consisting of a mask that covered everything except the part of the face where his eyes were. Most of his hair was under a black beanie that matched the color of his outfit. Besides the mask it was a pretty casual costume, a black t-shirt, black jeans and black Vans. _Is he supposed to be a ninja or something?_

Lucy had quickly caught on that he had been sneaking glances at her for a while. The guy was _really_ bad at being discreet. But still had yet to approach her. He merely continued to dance a respectable distance away, not-so sneakily looking away quickly when she looked in his direction. Strange. Everyone else that was attracted to her here at this alcohol haven of a frat party wasted no time in rubbing up against her without even asking for permission, and it was starting to annoy her.

Ninja guy was tall. At least a head taller than her, from what she could tell. The end of a tattoo could be seen under the sleeve of his shirt, interesting her further. She had kind of a thing for tattoos. She couldn't see his face, but judging by everything else, this guy was attractive.

She wanted to get closer.

Lucy waited until she caught his glance again, but this time she wouldn't look away. Luckily for her it happened right then, and she was able to put her plan into action immediately.

He tore his gaze away as soon as he noticed her eye on him, but brought it back when he saw that she was still looking. They stared at each other for a moment, before Lucy gave him a small smile and moved a little closer to where he was, still dancing. She couldn't see any facial expression he was making thanks to that annoying mask, but judging by his small step closer to her, it was in her favor.

She moved closer.

He did the same.

And soon they were right in front of each other, dancing together to whatever catchy generic song the DJ was playing.

They danced in sync with each other for a while, one gradually getting comfortable with the other's presence until they were basically moving together like they were best friends. Occasionally one would pull a silly dance move that would have the other laughing like crazy, happily enjoying each other's drunken company.

Lucy's is-this-guy-attractive meter only rose as the time progressed. She wasn't sure if it was the fact that he was drunk, but she could tell he was someone that didn't take himself too seriously. That was a serious plus for her. Add that to the fact that he had made her laugh several times through dancing alone. And now that he was so close, she able to get a better look at him. The mask, which Lucy could now see was just cloth he wrapped lazily around his head, exposed a strong jawline and intense eyes Lucy enjoyed staring into despite the dim light, cheesy as that sounds. If only she could just rip the the cloth off and admire the rest of his face…

She hoped Juvia and Levy spent all night looking for that drink.

A song, slower than the others but still fast enough to dance to began to play, and Lucy took this as an opportunity to get even closer to the handsome stranger. She gingerly, brought her hands up to wrap around his neck, grinning and pulling him slightly to her. His hands immediately went to her waist as they moved together with the music.

Their faces were mere inches away at this point. She'd been having the time of her life on this dance floor with him, and she couldn't deny the attraction she felt despite not even being able to see his full face. Not that it mattered at this point.

She removed her hands from around his neck to place him slightly underneath his chin, where she slowly lifted the edge of the cloth until it was just under his nose. He did absolutely nothing to stop her, only gripping her waist tighter as she worked.

Times like this where Lucy could truly let loose made her remember why exactly she had left home, and why exactly she was _never_ going back. There was no way this could ever happen back when she lived in that stifling house, and that's why she was going to enjoy every moment of this night, while she was too drunk to care about anything else and too _free now_ to not take any risks.

She cupped his face with her hands, got on the tips of her toes and kissed him.

It was a pretty simple kiss, she had merely gently placed her lips against his. But when she pulled away she found that she wanted more than that, and dove right back in. They seemed to be on the same wavelength because he met her halfway in a kiss that was still innocent, but better than the last.

Neither pulled back this time, instead choosing simultaneously to deepen the kiss as Lucy wrapped her arms around his neck to pull her closer. She felt His own arms went further around her slim waist, pulling her to him. She forgot about everyone else, focusing only on him and his lips on her own as they moved in perfect harmony.

Right when it was beginning to get more intense she felt a dainty, yet firm hand grab onto her arm and pull her back from her new friend, missing the closeness immediately as it was ripped away from her by her short bluenette friend. She immediately turned to glare daggers at her roommate.

"Sorry to break this up, but we gotta go!" Levy yelled over the bone-rattling music. Lucy furrowed a brow.

"Cops are here! Juvia's outside, come on!" Levy continued to pull the blonde towards the backdoor, giving no opportunity for questions. Lucy would drunkenly put the pieces together on the way back to the apartment.

Gradually getting out of her daze and putting the pieces together, Lucy seemed to finally understand the situation after several moments of being dragged by her surprisingly strong petite friend, and began to hop into step with her.

But she couldn't help but keep glancing behind her at her ninja friend, who seemed to still be looking at her in a daze while his, friend who looked kind of like her alcoholic neighbor Cana, urgently tugged on his sleeve. She smiled and gave him a small wave. She could see the small grin he returned as he waved back.

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

They made it out through the sliding door in the kitchen, walking right into a mess of panicking college students running in all directions. The sound of a siren could be heard coming from the other side of the house.

"This way!" Levy gripped Lucy's hand tighter as they ran across the grass of the backyard, dodging people left and right until they cut through a bush that led them straight to the road back to their apartment, a mask-free Juvia was already standing there waiting for them, running her hands up and down her arms. It was late, and it had gotten even colder than it was since they had arrived.

"What took you so long? It's freezing out here!" Juvia whined as they began making their way back home at 2am.

"Lucy here was busy making out with Natsu Dragneel to notice anything. Had to drag her out of there," Levy giggled.

"I see. Damn Lucy, I really didn't think you had it in you after this morning," Juvia chuckled. "If only Gray was there," she sighed.

"Sorr-"

…

"Wait, WHAT?"

"We were looking for something to drink and we saw him talking to the dude at the front door," Levy explained. "It seemed like they were friends but apparently that was no exception to the costume rule, so he just wrapped his scarf around his face and went in."

"We were gonna tell you after we found water or something but couldn't find anything that wasn't alcohol anywhere," Juvia continued. "We just gave up after a while and went to find you just to see you were already up close and personal with him."

"Juvia was so jealous," Levy snickered. "Congratulations girl! You found Natsu tonight like you wanted, and _more_."

"Ahhh if only Gray was there!" Juvia whined.

"You wouldn't have said a word to him, even drunk," Levy deadpanned.

"Ahhh you're right!"

Meanwhile, Lucy wasn't listening to anything the girls were saying. She _couldn't_ hear anything after _Natsu Dragneel._

"Uhh, hey Lucy are you ok? You look kinda…"

"Oh Mavis she's falling!"

"Did she just faint?!"

"Quick! Before she lands on the pavement!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Holy sh*t. I suck.**

 **University tends to make me real stressed, and when I'm stressed my motivation tend to plummet. T-T**

 **Falling face deep into the Seven Deadly Sins manga also did not help.**

 **I'm just gonna shut up now and let you read this long overdue chapter.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

Lucy woke up (in her bed thank the gods) with a splitting headache and no memory of what the actual hell happened after Levy pulled out the Fireball last night.

She slapped a hand to her forehead, both as a result of the sudden pain rattling her skull and her knowingly going past her limit and drinking more than she knew she could handle. She had only blacked out once before, and that night had resulted in a long string of consecutive drunk decisions so mortifying they had to be burned from memory.

Lucy had vowed then to never drink past her limit ever again, because people _always_ kept their alcohol related promises, right?

It wasn't like she could remember about five other mornings in which she made that very same vow.

She buried her head underneath her sheet and groaned, only to jolt right out of bed and straight to the toilet when the horrid sensation in her stomach suddenly increased tenfold.

She hoped no one could hear her very attractive coughs and gags as all the contents in her stomach were emptied into the porcelain bowl. Once she was sure it was over she slouched against the bathroom wall, in the same clothes from last night, desperately needing a shower and a toothbrush.

She was _never_ drinking again.

* * *

"You're still not gonna tell me what happened?"

"What?"

"You were acting so weird yesterday!"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

An unimpressed look was shot in a certain pinkette's direction. "I know you're not _that_ much of an idiot," Gray chided.

Natsu chose to ignore the ice block in favor of aimlessly scrolling through random social media on his phone, his mind a jumbled mess.

While he was trying his best to be casual about everything, he couldn't stop replaying the events of the previous night in his head. If there was anything he was not expecting to happen on this trip, it was _this_. And he had no idea what to do now.

Last night they had all been hanging out in Cana's apartment before Erza went off to Mavis knows where, Wendy left to get some sleep and Gajeel just walked out with no warning. Cana had gotten a text from a friend at about nine inviting her to some costume party, where she, Natsu and Gray had decided to go because why the hell not.

Already buzzed, they arrived about an hour late and found themselves immediately heading to the dance floor. After greeting a couple friends, Cana and Gray wandered off to find where all the booze was being kept and left Natsu on his own.

That was when he saw _her_.

Half of her face was covered by a mask but he had no doubt in his mind Celestial had been on the dance floor mere feet away from him.

Natsu had tried to play it cool, but he couldn't stop himself from stealing glances until she finally caught him looking at her. He gave an inward _Fuck!_ and quickly looked away not wanting to seem like the biggest creep, but when he noticed she wasn't looking away and was even _smiling_ all his doubts were thrown out the window.

By the end of the night he had gotten a kiss from her.

In the drunk moment he had been over the moon, but as his head settled he was able to think more clearly about what had happened.

Natsu had come to realize two things. First, there was no way Lucy had been in her right mind at the time. Her wobbly movements and the strong taste of alcohol he got when he kissed her made it quite clear she had been very drunk that night, but he also had too much to drink that night to make proper judgements. Second, she probably had no idea who he was at the time, which kind of bummed him out. He wasn't trying to brag or anything, but he was positive she knew who he was and would recognize him. Considering she mentioned him in the video she posted a couple weeks ago, he felt like she would have had some kind of reaction if she did know that he was the face behind the scarf.

Right?

It wasn't like Natsu expected a lot of people to know him well. He was just some guy who talked about anime on camera with his friends. He was popular, but he wasn't really raking in the attention of the masses with his content. That was totally okay with him. But because the anime YouTube community was so small, and she had shouted him out in a video, _and_ they had had a previous interaction before, he was almost certain Lucy would have said or done something, _anything_ if she ever saw him again. Although, Natsu didn't really peg Lucy as the type to kiss random strangers at parties. But that could be blamed on the alcohol. But it also could have been the alcohol that gave her the confidence to approach him when she couldn't the other morning. But it was also really dark. And his face was covered. And-

His thoughts were a complete mess.

Ultimately, judging by how nervous she was when she saw him in the hallway, a full blown kiss was probably not something she would do, even drunk. Which is why a large part of him just wanted to forget it ever happened and go home with everything just like how it was before.

His thoughts and Gray's complaining were interrupted when a knock at the door caught their attention. Gray gave Natsu one last look before turning to open the door to their shared hotel room, revealing a happy looking, fully dressed Erza, with Wendy in tow.

"Good morning!" The redhead said cheerfully with an uncharacteristically wide grin.

"Uh…" Gray raised an eyebrow, "Morning?"

"Why are you so happy? Are you drunk?" Natsu asked bluntly, earning an irritated eyebrow twitch from Erza.

She ignored him. "Wendy and I were going to make a stop by Starbucks and take a walk around town, would you both like to come?"

"Yeah!" Natsu answered for them both, eagerly jumping at the chance to go outside and escape his overthinking and _eat_.

"I don't mind," Gray agreed, but not before giving Natsu another look he ignored while they grabbed everything they needed to leave. He sighed. Natsu was stubborn, but he was gonna get information out of him one way or another.

* * *

Lucy pulled the hoodie of her black pullover lower over her head as she waited with Juvia and Levy in the Starbucks line. She couldn't be bothered with makeup or anything to make her look any less dead inside with her head still reeling the way it was, and it was just their luck that they had run out of coffee in their apartment days ago and were too lazy to go to the store and get more.

It didn't help that Levy and Juvia had been acting strange the whole morning. They refused to tell Lucy what exactly happened last night, insisting it was best if she remembered on her own. It made absolutely no sense to her, and in fact made the pit in her stomach even worse, but she couldn't be bothered to argue or do anything at all until she got some coffee in her.

"So Lucy," Levy sang with a smirk. "Remember anything yet?"

"No," she sighed. "Just tell me what I did, _please._ "

"Do you _really_ want to know?"

The way Levy said that had her suddenly second guessing everything. _Did_ she want to know how she probably humiliated herself last night? "Well now I'm not sure I want to know," she groaned.

Levy giggled. "You didn't do anything bad," she said.

Lucy immediately let out an inner sigh of relief.

"... But you're gonna freak the hell out once you find out what happened."

"Okay okay just tell me!"

Levy laughed again. "Fine. You're not at all ready for this but—"

She was cut off by a squeal coming from Juvia, who was currently pointing at her phone with barely hidden enthusiasm.

"Gray just posted a photo! He's here!"

"Yeah, we've seen them here before," Levy said with a raised eyebrow.

"He's _here_. He just posted a picture by the cute bench right next to _this_ Starbucks!"

Despite her headache and exhaustion, Lucy's eyebrows rose into her blonde bangs as her jaw dropped. She quickly moved over to Juvia's side to observe, nearly snatching the phone out of her hands in her excitement.

Sure enough, in front of her eyes was an aesthetic picture of the park by the very coffee shop they were currently in. You could even see the building slightly coming into the frame on the right.

"Oh my God!" Was it taken some other time and posted now? Or did he post it right after taking it? Was she feet away from Fairy Tail right now?!

Her inner questions were instantly answered when the Starbucks door was swung open.

Like some crappy high school movie, the whole thing seemed to go in slow motion. With Erza Scarlet in the lead, Gray Fullbuster, Wendy Marvell and _Natsu Dragneel_ walked into the shop and began walking towards the line where Lucy and her friends were. Like some scene out of a goddamn rom-com, Natsu was in the middle of laughing at something one of them had said, his bright white smile lighting up his whole face as he walked. In a clean loose white t-shirt and crisp fitted black jeans, Lucy was ready to melt on the spot.

Juvia wasn't any better, turning around in the opposite direction in a flustered frenzy as soon as she spotted Gray walking in, looking fashionably put together as always in a striped button-up and dark skinny jeans rolled up slightly at the ankles. She threw a hand over her mouth to muffle her involuntary squeal at the sight of seeing the love of her life in broad daylight.

Lucy snapped back to reality and immediately tore her eyes away from her approaching internet crush when she remembered just how much of a mess she looked like right now. She only had the strength to throw on some dark track pants and a black pullover hoodie when she got up today, not to mention her face was completely bare and she was currently letting her hair sit in a messy ball behind her head, hidden under the hood of her sweatshirt. She cursed inwardly and hoped he didn't notice her as they got in line. There was no way she was letting him see her looking like personified death a _second_ time.

Oh but for Mavis' sake they were _right there!_

"Next customer please!"

It was finally their turn to order, and an overly excitable Juvia and Lucy somehow managed to shakily recite their drink orders to the amused cashier while an equally tickled Levy watched, trying her hardest not to burst out in laughter in the middle of Starbucks.

Figuring they were in the clear, they both breathed sighs of relief only to tense up once more when they realized the bar where you pick up your drink just happened to be right where the end of the line was. They would be waiting for their drinks directly in front of them.

Oh happy day.

Keeping her head turned the other way and her hoodie as low as possible as they walked over, she prayed to all the gods Natsu wouldn't be able to see her. At this point Lucy was so overwhelmed with nerves she just wanted to forget about her overpriced drink and leave.

"They're right behind us," Levy whispered to her from the right. "You should say something!"

"I really can't," Lucy replied honestly, her breathing getting quicker with every passing moment she spent directly in front of her idols. "I'll freak out. It'll be bad."

Levy gave the nervous blonde one more look over before giving a final sigh in defeat. She knew how troubled Lucy could get in situations like this, and was certain Lucy would internally combust right now under the pressure of meeting not one, but four of the people she'd been looking up to for several years.

"Juvia thinks it's time to leave right now," a flustered bluenette whisper-screamed urgently. "Juvia can't handle this situation right now."

Lucy quickly nodded in agreement, completely forgetting about her drink as she slowly began to walk to the door of the Starbucks they were in. "Agreed, time to go," she said quietly, motioning for the others to follow her and escape the situation.

Levy gave one more sigh of disappointment and turned to follow the blonde out the door.

 _So much for my drink._

She was sure Lucy would regret this later, but for now she would respect her wishes in favor of preventing another heart attack.

* * *

A couple more days passed, and eventually came Juvia's last day on campus with Levy and Lucy. Lucy had been able to escape several more near-encounters with her YouTube crush, cursing herself every time for her lack of balls every time she dodged out of Natsu's line of sight. She'd gotten a couple weird stares and was almost noticed when she jumped into a nearby bush in a panic, capturing the attention of the other YouTuber and nearly being caught.

That day they escaped Starbucks, Lucy had learned some very interesting, exciting, shocking, mortifying things about what she had done the night before. Levy and Juvia had to forcibly keep her away from any electronic device for several hours to stop her from deleting her YouTube channel. And her Twitter. And all her social media. Liquid confidence had led her to doing something she could never, _ever_ do if she was in her right mind and all Lucy wanted to do after finding out was crawl into a hole and never come out until it was 50 years later and no one remembered or recognized her. Or maybe move to a faraway island where she could live her life amongst the tree people and never have to interact with anyone ever again. Or just disappear into oblivion altogether so she wouldn't ever do anything so embarrassing for the rest of time.

She kissed Natsu Dragneel.

Looking back, she could see the obvious signs it was him behind the scarf poorly wrapped around his head. Even in the dim lighting, she could recall the wild pink hair jutting out of the scarf in various places, and she could even remember the deep green of his eyes that would become visible with every flash of the strobe light. Back then, in her drunken stupor she had written all these features off as afterthoughts, the only thing coming to mind was that he was attractive and she wanted to dance with him.

She had made a video confessing how she felt about him, and then proceeded to go and make a move on him at a party, all while she had barely ever made an effort to say two words to him.

Thinking about it made her want nothing more than to just crawl into a hole for the rest of her days once again. What if she came across as desperate to him, or worse, what if he was creeped out by her actions and wanted nothing to do with her?!

She was moving to Pergrande and changing her name to Ashley.

"Lucy?" Levy questioned from her spot beside the dazed looking blonde in their art history class. Professor Reedus was going on about his own art again, so everything he would be saying until the end of class wouldn't even be worth taking notes on anymore. "Everything good?"

"Everything is fine," Lucy said quickly, though the panicked look in her eye told Levy otherwise. Knowing exactly where her friend's mind had drifted again, Levy rolled her eyes and nudged her shoulder, grabbing her full attention.

"It'd be wise to forget about that, you know," Levy sighed. "After all, you have much more important things to worry about today."

Lucy gave her a curious look.

Levy eyed her incredulously back. "You seriously forgot?"

Lucy raised a brow and pulled out her phone from the pocket of her large sweatshirt, pressing the home button to check the date. A wave of realization poured over her like a bucket of cold water and her mind was successfully taken from her overthinking.

"The Smash Bros tournament!" She all but squealed, earning a few stares from nearby classmates, not that she paid them any mind. _I can't believe I forgot!_

Every semester, The HU video game club would host a tournament where participants battled it out in Super Smash Bros, hoping to come out on top and win the grand prize given to player who could beat all their opponents.

Only the best survived.

Lucy participated every year, and every year she always won first place. _Always._ All the years she spent hiding from the persistent maids at her father's home playing the battle royale game on her DS in the closet paid off here, and she could surely beat anyone and everyone that challenged her title as number one Smash Bros player in the whole school. As soon as the date for the event was announced at the start of the semester, she was one of the first people to sign up, more eager than usual to play and win once again this time.

The prize this year was the complete collection of any manga of your choosing. Every single volume from beginning to end, courtesy of the anime club.

She owed it to her Fairy Tail loving soul to win this.

Her previous feelings of embarrassment were immediately replaced with determination, and Levy grinned excitedly when she spotted that familiar glint in her friend's eyes, more intense than it usually got during this time.

The tournament was gonna be especially interesting this year.

* * *

"Smash tournament?" A certain black-haired male questioned, smirking. "Sounds fun, where do I sign up?"

"Are you sure you can handle it?" His friend remarked with a challenging stare. "I beat your ass in Smash all the time, droopy eyes. You suck!"

The members of Fairy Tail sat in a nearby park by their hotel, enjoying the rest of their time in the town of Hargeon before they had to leave in a couple days.

"Shut it, you damn pyro. You just get lucky," Gray shot back.

"I'll sign up too," Natsu said, never one to skip out on a good competition.

"Great, because I already signed you both up as soon as Cana informed me of it," Erza gave a small smile to her two friends who were already giving each other competitive glares. "I would love to participate as well, but I will unfortunately be busy tonight," she added. The boys both turned their heads toward her at that.

"Doing what?" Gray asked, raising a brow.

"Aw, there goes my actual competition," Natsu sighed disappointedly. Erza was one of the only people who could actually match him in skill.

Everyone ignored Gray's offended scoff, though Wendy couldn't hold back a small giggle. "I would sign up too, but there's no way I'm good enough to beat any of you," she admitted. "I'll cheer you on from the sidelines with Cana!"

"Is there a prize?" Gray asked excitedly.

"The first place winner will receive the complete manga collection of your choosing." Erza informed with a grin. "So I'd say it is in your best interest to win this, boys. How long have we been discussing owning all of Fairy Tail?"

They both sat up straighter at this.

"That's so exciting!" Wendy chimed. "Good luck guys!"

"Yeah, I'm winning this," Natsu declared confidently. "I'm all fired up!"

"Maybe I should just give up now," Gray muttered under his breath.

* * *

That night, the large lecture hall hosting the semi-annual Smash Bros tournament was teeming with spectators and participants, filling the large room with chatter while people waited for the event to begin.

Lucy stepped into the hall with hesitance in her step, knowing as soon as she walked in all eyes would fall on her, the first place winner of the tournament every time it came around. As she walked through the doors, the whole room went quiet, and Lucy wanted to run away into a corner right then and there.

After a moment, the silence was instantly replaced with cheers from the audience, and shouts of encouragement filled the space. She smiled shyly, gaze stuck to the floor as Juvia and Levy gave both her hands comforting squeezes before they had to separate from her.

"Good luck! I can't wait to finally see this," Juvia piped from the girl's right.

"I already know where we should display that collection when you get it," Levy said, giggling before the two blunettes headed deeper into the hall to find somewhere to sit amongst the other spectators.

The participants were to sit at the very front rows, in front of a smaller table where two game system controllers rested. A projector displayed the Super Smash Bros menu, the screen taking up a large part of the wall facing everyone in the room.

She began to move to take her seat, but the glimpse of pink she saw in her peripheral vision had all her thoughts coming to a screeching halt.

She turned her wide eyes slowly towards the entrance, already knowing what she'd find but not being able to run away this time.

Natsu Dragneel had just walked into the hall, and he was staring right at her.

* * *

Several hours after finding out about the tournament, Natsu ended up finding his way to the lecture hall a bit earlier than the others, too eager to get there and win the first place prize he was almost certain would be given to him. He was also hoping to meet some of his competition, seeing this as a opportunity to possibly meet some cool people before it was time to head back to Magnolia.

The first thing he noticed when he walked into the large room was how unexpectedly populated it was. He didn't really mind, but it did come as a shock to him to see this many people at a tournament like this. Not that mattered. This just made things more fun.

The second thing he noticed was the head of blonde hair mere feet away from where he stood.

He paused, not expecting this at all, and straight up froze when Lucy suddenly turned to meet his gaze and visibly tensed. Of all places to run into her... He remained where he stood, not sure what to do until he noticed her face was gradually shifting into an expression of panic. Before he even realized what he was doing Natsu found himself making his way towards her. Much to his relief she didn't make any move to run away, and he soon found himself giving her an easygoing grin in greeting.

"Hey! I know you," he said with a small laugh, knowing how shy she was by now and not wanting to give her a reason to escape the situation.

Her gaze had shifted downward to the floor. "Y-yeah," she stammered. She didn't say anything more, suddenly seeming very interested in a spot on one of the floor tiles.

"You here to see the tournament? I'll be winning first place this year," he stated proudly, unable to help himself.

All at once it seemed like some sort of a switch had been flipped in her brain, and Natsu was surprised to see her slowly lift her head to finally look at his eyes. He couldn't really put his finger on it, but there was a new spark to her gaze that nearly had him wanting to run away and give up on the tournament completely.

Was Lucy secretly Erza 2.0?

"I'm sorry," she began, and Natsu could've sworn her eyes had narrowed slightly. "What was that?"

"Uh," he was suddenly kind of nervous, his self-assurance wavering under the intensity of her stare. "I'm winning first place this year," this time when he said it, it sounded more like a question than a statement.

Something flashed in her eyes, so brief he almost didn't catch it, and the corners of her lips suddenly turned upwards in a seemingly innocent grin. "I see. That's interesting."

"How so?"

"Because _I'll_ be winning first place today."

* * *

 **Next chapter will be coming _much_ sooner. I promise. I'll have it up by next week, mmkay?**

 **Also, _100 reviews?!_ What?! I don't deserve you T-T**

 **I can't thank you all enough for taking the time to rate and review my story. Please continue. I mean I'm bribing y'all, remember?** **This will be the last time I give this reminder 'cause I'm still kinda nervous about doing it, but 500 reviews and I'll put a lemon in this story.**

 **And I don't mean the -ade kind. Ha. Ha ha.**

 **Oh god I'm just gonna go now goodbye ily**


	8. Chapter 8

**Who's** **ready** **to** _**S**_ ** _mash_?!**

 **Um**. **Smash** **Bros**.. **I'm** **talking** **about** **Smash** **Bros**.

 **Back** **a** **week** **later** **as** **promised ...** **Kind** **of! I had to post this from my phone. I hope I did it rightlel**

 **Enjoy** **the** **festivities** ~

* * *

The moment Natsu mentioned getting first place, Lucy's initial nervousness and shock was overpowered by the competitive spirit that always awakened when this particular tournament was involved. She wasn't sure how skilled he actually was in Smash (they'd never played it on the channel before), but what she _did_ know was there was no way her title would be taken today. She had a manga collection to win.

When it came to this, Lucy couldn't care less who you were. She was going to _crush_ this fool... and not in the way she had been doing so since she discovered his channel.

His brows shot up into his bangs, seemingly taken aback by her sudden confidence and she had to struggle to keep from sinking back into herself. Natsu gained his bearings fairly quickly though, smirk taking over his features after the initial unexpectedness of her response. "You sure about that?"

"Oh I am," she replied back right away, just as casually. "There's no way you're beating me."

"Hmm," he looked up in feigned contemplation, bringing his hands behind his head. _This_ was a side of her he wanted to see more of. Lucy nearly pinched herself to keep her eyes from drifting to his arms. Curse him for wearing short sleeves.

"Just gonna have to see about that," Natsu retorted after a short moment. "Because I feel the same way."

She'd had interactions like this before. An overconfident individual would approach her and proudly announce that they would be taking her spot at the top, only to be disappointed when they lost with little effort on her part. But none of them had ever sounded as sure of themselves as her not-so secret YouTube crush did right now. Natsu seriously thought he was going to win, huh.

This fact, rather than intimidate her, only made her more determined to win. She was going to enjoy seeing the look on his handsome face when she knocked him out of the arena and thoroughly snuffed out his pride.

"Well good luck, Natsu," a sliver of her shyness crept back in at the use of his name, but her small smile was anything but timid.

"You too, Lucy," he said easily back, holding out a hand.

Her smile faltered and she flushed when her name fell from his lips, shifting her eyes to his hand for a brief moment before taking it into her own. She ignored the spark she felt when their hands met.

 _Oh my god I kissed him oh my god oh my godohmygodohmy-_

Anxious Lucy instantly made a reappearance and her heart began to thump wildly against her chest at the memory. She quickly took her hand from his after shaking it once, bringing her own together to wring them nervously.

"Natsu!"

Both parties turned at the sound of Cana calling to her pink-haired friend with an enthusiastic wave. Her large grin grew, shifting slightly more into sly smirk territory when she noticed the blonde beside him. "And Lucy! Hey~!"

She and two others, who Lucy instantly recognized as Wendy Marvell and Gray Fullbuster, made their way toward the two.

"Oh my god," she breathed. Wow. _Three_ Fairy Tail members in her presence. And she didn't look like a hungover train wreck this time!

How many years has she been waiting for this?!

"Woah! You're Celestial," Gray said with raised brows and a smile. "It's so cool to meet you! I'm a fan of your videos!"

"Me too!" Wendy followed, "Wasn't expecting to see you here!"

Lucy gave them a small nervous laugh, trying to seem as calm as possible while on the inside she was squealing in excitement at meeting more members. And they watched her! They _liked_ her! "Thank you. I really like your channel too," she squeaked out.

"Lucy's competing!" Natsu piped from her side.

"Really? That's awesome," Gray grinned at the blonde. "Looks like we're rivals then."

She gave him a soft smile in return, forcefully suppressing her inner fangirl. "Good luck."

"We'll be cheering you all on!" Cana waved again before making her way with Wendy to the spectator seats.

"Let's talk later Lucy!" Wendy called as they walked off.

As if on cue, the lights suddenly went dim as the video game club president stood from their seat to stand in front of all of the participants and spectators. The three participants exchanged brief looks before quickly moving to find a seat with the others. Natsu took the seat beside Lucy, and she found herself wondering how she was going to be able to focus on anything with him being so close to her.

In real life D.

Real life D where she could actually reach out and touch him if she wanted.

Real life D in like, super 3D.

Real life super 3DD-

Anyway.

She was relieved nothing seemed weird with him after the other night. She hoped the universe was actually on her side for once and he had forgotten all about it.

Her cheeks flushed all over again, remembering how the guy she had been internet crushing on for years had _kissed_ her. She tried and failed to push away the memory of how she felt wrapped in his toned arms, how surprisingly soft his lips were on hers, the firm grip on her hips when the kiss had begun to escalate, how he smelled like a warm, inviting campfire… She barely held herself back from squealing giddily like a teenage school girl.

 _Jeez, get a hold of yourself, Lucy_. But it was so hard to not think about when he was sitting right next to her!

"Get ready to get your ass kicked, flamebrain," Lucy suddenly heard Gray snicker from the seat beside Natsu, thankfully bringing her away from her inner strife.

"Keep talking, you're just gonna embarrass yourself," Natsu waved him off with a chuckle of his own.

They bickered for a bit, and Lucy couldn't help but feel excited to able to witness it first hand, until the president cleared his throat into the mic and effectively ended all previous conversations.

"First of all I'd like to thank you all for coming! My name is Max and I'm the president of the Video Game Club," The short brunette man said into the mic, voice booming into all corners of the large space. "We wouldn't be able to do this every semester without you all!"

The audience exploded into cheers before going quiet again, eager for the competition to start.

"I want to get this going as soon as possible, so I'll just explain how this is gonna work and we can get right into it," Max began. "We've got a good amount of participants tonight, and they'll be fighting 1v1 on their way to the top. Each match will have three rounds, and whoever wins the most rounds will get to move forward in the tournament."

At the end of his last sentence, a chart appeared on the long screen behind him, with all their names written in boxes at the bottom, in pairs. Lucy immediately scanned the list, looking for her name. She secretly hoped she got to fight Natsu in the very first round. She would love to see the look of defeat on his face when he lost in the very beginning.

Unfortunately her name ended up being nowhere near his, how disheartening.

No matter, she could be patient.

"Before we get this started, I'd like to remind everyone that there is someone that still has yet to be defeated since she started attending HU, and naturally she is competing one again this semester to defend her title," he grinned. "Let's hear it for Lucy Heartfilia!"

The crowd erupted into cheers again, but at the moment Lucy only cared to see one person's reaction. With a smirk she snuck a glance of the man beside her, only for it to drop when she saw he still held the same confident demeanor as before. Did he seriously still think he could beat her?!

"Woah! Sick, Lucy!" Gray called from his seat.

"T-thanks!"

"Well now I feel kinda bad," Natsu said smoothly, looking over to the blonde beside him. "I'm stealing your title this year."

Her brown eyes instantly shifted to shoot Natsu a bored look, charged ever so slightly with fury. "It'll be fun watching you try."

Gray eyed the exchange with surprised interest, the tiniest of smirks on his face as he whistled lowly and returned his attention to the club president.

"And now, without further ado, let the games begin!"

* * *

The beginning matches of the tournament ended as expected, with Lucy, Natsu and Gray making quick work of defeating their opponents in all three rounds. She paid special attention to Natsu's match, getting a read on his skill level and techniques. She could admit that the guy was pretty good, but there was also the fact that his opponent was quite obviously not a very experienced player. He never made proper use of his shield and tended to resort to intense aimless button mashing when he was in a pinch. Both of those tended to be common mistakes in new players and it was no surprise he was bested by Natsu.

Lucy's opponent had been more experienced, but his skill just simply could not be matched with hers. Gray had struggled a little more than the two others, though he did end up coming out on top fairly quickly in the end. After all the matches had ended, the participants were given a break as the chart was updated.

"Looks like we're all moving on," Gray said as they returned their previous seats. "This is fun!"

"I'm all fired up!" Natsu agreed.

"Hey!"

All three of their heads turned to a male voice coming from behind them. The club president, Max, was approaching them with a wide grin, smartphone in hand. Slightly bewildered looks were exchanged as he came up to them, looking like he'd just seen a famous person.

Oh wait.

"I'm a big fan of your channel!"

 _Right._ In all the excitement Lucy had nearly forgotten just how popular Fairy Tail was. Smiling widely at the two YouTubers beside her, the guy was practically jumping for joy when he finally reached them.

"Really? That's so awesome," Natsu gave a matching white smile in return.

"It's so cool to see you guys here! Can I get a picture?" The president lifted his phone, frantically swiping until he found the camera app.

"Oh wow," Gray seemed a little taken aback at the request. "Of course!"

Natsu chucked and muttered something about being nobody special as he and Gray moved to stand on either side of the excited fan, who looked so happy he could burst on the spot.

"Uh," Lucy eyed the way he was taking the picture, selfie style with his arm stretched out as far as he could. "I could take the picture if you want," she offered with a shy smile.

Max's eyes shifted to the blonde, impossibly wide grin growing even bigger. "Really!? Thanks a lot!"

"No problem," she giggled, taking the phone from his hands and turning it to the side for a landscape shot. Natsu and Gray stood on either side of Max, all three of them giving wide grins and funny poses when the flash went off. She took a couple more before handing the phone back to the president.

"Thanks!" He grinned appreciatively. "Good luck in the tournament, guys!" He turned to the Fairy Tail members before skipping off. "Good luck trying to beat this one. Lucy's one of the best players I know!"

"I'll try my best," Natsu said, jade eyes locking onto the undefeated champion.

Defiant confidence washed over her once more, and she gave him a bored smile before turning to walk back to her seat until the matches started again. Her demeanor almost crumbled completely when she felt his gaze on her as she passed him and walked off.

"Uh," Gray watched the interaction with eyebrows raised and a small smile. "What's going on with you and Lucy?"

"Just a little friendly competition," Natsu replied simply before turning to follow the girl that was enthralling him more with every passing moment back to their seats.

The tournament had resumed after a couple minutes, the three of them making short, fun conversation as they waited, though Lucy had barely talked. She was pleasantly surprised to find out she'd be going against Gray this time around. While it wasn't Natsu, she beamed at the opportunity to go against a Fairy Tail member, and she was excited to get things going. She had watched his previous match as well, and he seemed to be significantly better than her previous opponent, so it was no wonder he had ended up moving on.

It took slightly longer for these matches to end, with the more experienced players stepping up to the plate and going against each other. She had watched Natsu's match again, and was able to get more of a read on his ability as she watched him go against a more skilled opponent. She was pleased to see that he had won in the end once again, meaning her chances of crushing him had risen. She had to defeat Gray first, though. She knew that both men were avid fans of video games, so she certainly expected to be met with a challenge when it was time to face him.

"Ready to go, Lucy?" Gray looked towards the blonde from their seats when it was their turn to play next. "I know you're the undefeated champion, but I like to think I have a chance," he added, grinning mischievously.

"Let's do this," Lucy said with a grin, the two of them standing when they named were called to come up.

"Good luck, Lucy!" Natsu called out genuinely to her, ignoring Gray's "What about me?" as he smiled brightly and gave her a thumbs up.

She nearly tripped on her own feet. "T-thanks," she murmured nervously before shifting her focus to her next goal.

It was time for the next round.

* * *

Gray was proving to be a pretty capable opponent.

The match had started in her favor, Lucy had won the first round with a trivial amount of difficulty. Gray was definitely better the previous guy, but in the end it seemed Lucy's skill was still too great compared to his own, and in the end she defeated him.

And then the next round started.

It was as if a switch was flipped within him, and Lucy found she was having much more difficulty gaining the upper hand on him in the second round. She had a feeling he had been gauging her tactics and habits in the first round, and now he knew what to look out for. She ended up having to put her entire focus onto the game, realizing she was going to have to really put all her skills out there if she was gonna beat this guy. She hadn't been trying to underestimate him, but at this point she was so used to holding back she had begun to do it without even realizing what she was doing.

She ended up winning the second round, but it had been close.

Too close.

"Damn!" She heard Gray cry out when she knocked his character out of the arena with a swift press of the "A" button, a big sigh of relief escaping her when she finally was able to get close enough to finish the job and "Game!" appeared on the screen, signalling the end of the round.

"And the winner is Lucy!"

She loosened her grip on the controller when she realized how tight she had been gripping it, one thought entering her mind and drowning out the cheering of the crowd as she stood from the seat.

 _Natsu was gonna be tough,_ she admitted for the first time.

"Holy crap! You're a beast, Lucy," Gray held out a hand and she took it with a grin. "Kick Natsu's ass for me, alright?"

"Thank you! And I intend to," Lucy stated easily.

Due to his loss, Gray had to leave the section of the hall meant for the participants to go sit with the spectators. She wished she could be there to see Juvia's face when he went up there, knowing Cana and Wendy would definitely be with them and that's who he'd be looking for.

Aand now all she had to do was survive sitting alone with Natsu for the rest of the tournament.

Said pinkette looked absolutely amazed when she returned to her seat. "That was awesome!"

"T-thanks," she smiled timidly in response, suddenly nervous and pulling her sleeves over her hands as she sat. _Natsu just complimented me!_

The level of fangirl had her cringing at herself.

"Oh my God!"

She turned curiously to the suddenly unexpected voice coming from in front of her. A redhead with pigtails waved excitedly in greeting as she sat in the seat directly below her, her knees facing the back. Lucy recognized her as one of the more skilled contestants in the tournament. "Finally! I've been looking for you this whole time!"

The two YouTubers exchanged confused looks.

She giggled before continuing. "I'm Chelia. I love your channel!"

 _A fan!_ "Oh! Really?! Oh my god!" Lucy stood and grinned widely, holding out her arms to embrace the girl in front of her, Chelia. She eagerly returned the hug with a squeal.

"Can I get a picture?!" Chelia took out her phone and snapped a photo with Lucy, taking three more before putting the device away.

The two sat back down and Natsu raised amused brows at the blondes enthusiasm. It was the most animated he'd seen her since she got here. Chelia glanced at him briefly, turning back to say something to Lucy before doing a double take.

"Hey, I know you! You're Natsu! Wow! I had a feeling it was you when I saw your name on the board and stuff, but I wasn't sure... " She nearly jumped from her chair again. "I love Fairy Tail!"

Natsu grinned widely at the girl. "Awesome! Nice to meet ya!"

"Wait, oh my god," She glanced between the two YouTubers, her own smile growing with every turn of her head. "I knew it!" Without elaborating she whipped out her phone swiftly and began furiously typing. Natsu and Lucy shared another look, but before either could ask any questions the redhead was shoving her phone back into the pocket of her black jeans and speaking again.

"I had a feeling you two were dating! You look so cute together!"

Lucy put all lighthouses in the world to shame with how red her entire face had glowed.

"D-d-d-d- _dating?_ " She stammered incredulously, her mind going back to _that night_ without her permission.

"Dating?" Natsu questioned with honest curiosity. After a moment it seemed he was able to put the pieces together with an amused laugh. "Oh, we're not dating."

Chelia's grin instantly dropped. "Oh. Awww..." she murmured dejectedly under her breath. "My mistake," she said with an embarrassed laugh.

"No worries!" Natsu looked over at Lucy who was currently trying her hardest to calm down and get rid of the ever so prominent blush on her face. He observed her with slight interest for a second before turning back to face the fan, now pouting slightly... well, until she caught a glimpse of Lucy's flustered state.

A knowing look suddenly washed over her after a moment, before it was quickly wiped away. "Okay well, enjoy the rest of the tournament! I just really wanted to say hi! I'll leave you two alone now," the smile was back on Chelia's face, slightly more sly this time before she dashed away. "Looking forward to facing you in the tournament!"

"She's fun," Natsu chuckled beside Lucy when the girl has disappeared.

"Heh… heh," Lucy let out another nervous chuckle.

* * *

It was now time for the tournament to resume.

After some difficulty, Natsu had finally managed to coax some small talk out of the nervous blonde YouTuber, even getting a small giggle out of her at a joke he had told. Lucy seemed to be really nervous around him and only him, and that was kind of disheartening. Did she know? About the night before?

He chose to believe she didn't, and was probably just a little shy around around people with oddly colored hair.

Yeah.

He'd managed to push whole kiss thing aside for the sake of trying to start anew with her, but now that it had crossed his mind once more he couldn't quite get the memory out of his head. She had been so forward then, it was hard to believe this was the same person he had danced with the other night.

Thankfully the club president guy had begun announcing again when Natsu's thoughts were beginning to drift to how she felt pressed against him as her smooth, plump lips explored his.

"Everyone find your seats! The tournament will continue now! From now on there will be no more breaks, as we are approaching the end, folks!"

There were only four remaining participants, including Natsu and Lucy.

Lucy couldn't help but silently hope Natsu won his match against Chelia. She was a sweet girl, but this way she could personally make him see that his pride was going to get him nowhere, and her winning was the only possible conclusion that could come from this. She was aware she herself was starting to sound a little cocky, but she couldn't help herself.

He started it.

The whole duration of the tournament so far consisted of her constantly alternating desires between hiding from him and crushing him flat under her feet, but now she was beginning to slowly warm up to him. Them being alone had actually given them the opportunity for them to talk one-on-one, though Lucy had been ready to hide in the bathroom for the remainder of the whole tournament to avoid embarrassing herself. But she quickly learned that Natsu was a talkative person, and managed to fill in the space in conversations for the both of them with small remarks, light conversation, and funny jokes. He was being so... _normal_ , and it was starting to feel weird for her to stay an anxious mess. While she was still a nervous wreck because this was freaking _Natsu Dragneel_ , she had begun to open up to him a little more, giving small replies to the best of her ability and sitting up straighter in her seat, rather than hunched over in a subconscious attempt to crawl into a ball and hide. It lightened her heart to know that her idol and internet crush was so friendly and likeable in real life, and she felt they may have even been friends if she had met him as a stranger at school or something.

The sound of the president brought her out of her thoughts and back into the lecture hall. "Alright, first up we have Natsu and Chelia!"

"See you in the final round, Lucy," he grinned at the blonde beside him, earning a small blush.

"So confident," Lucy gave a small teasing smile as he stood. She thought she saw his gaze linger on her for an extra beat before walking off, but decided it to be a trick of the light.

It was a trick of the light, okay? No need for her to go into crazed fangirl mode for the nth time that night.

Chelia met him up front and took her seat and controller, turning around and giving an excited wave to Lucy before shaking Natsu's hand and bringing her focus to the match. She seemed like a really nice, sweet girl. It was a shame she was caught in the middle of this little competition the two YouTubers had managed to stir up.

"Fight!" They had chosen their characters, and the game sound echoed throughout the whole hall. The two opponents were placed into the arena and the first round had begun.

Chelia's ability was truly nothing to sneeze at. As soon as it started she seemed to put Natsu on the defensive in a flurry of speed and ranged attacks, fully using her chosen fighter's strengths to her advantage. He barely had enough time do anything but block, and for moment Lucy thought he had been officially outmatched.

How disappointing.

His damage percentage was increasing slow but steadily, while Chelias would only rise when he finally managed to get a hit on her every so often. But he wasn't getting hits in quick enough, and the redhead began to quickly gain the upperhand when his damage had reached 90%.

Then the tables were devastatingly flipped.

It seemed to Lucy that Natsu had a very similar strategy to Gray. Towards the end it was like he predicted all of Chelia's attacks before she could even see them through, and as a result she was reduced to having to use her shield way more often than what would be desirable.

His damage had not rose a single percentage before she was knocked out of the arena, signalling the end of the first round.

The second round had ended in a similar fashion than the first.

"The winner is Natsu!"

The loud noise of Max's voice through the mic followed by the even louder cheers from the crowd was what got Lucy to realize she was still gaping at the screen with her jaw unhinged, unable to fathom what just happened.

Was this guy a _god_?

She had never in her history of participating in this tournament had ever seen such skill and reflexes in this game than just now. Chelia, who had proved to be a worthy opponent, had been utterly _crushed_. It was clear he hadn't really been putting all his effort in this whole tournament, and Chelia had been the one to finally force him to give it his all.

She could see Chelia's disappointed, yet excited expression as she gave a hug to the man who had bested her, saying something that him chuckling and bringing a thoughtful hand behind his head when they separated.

"And now it's time for the penultimate battle!" The video game club president was once again speaking when Natsu had found his seat, grinning at Lucy.

"Chelia was really tough! Good luck with your match," he said as she rose.

"T-thanks!"

"But I'm looking forward to winning this tournament," the teasing tilt in his voice betrayed the casual tone, and Lucy's glare was on him.

"That's my line," she retorted, turning swiftly around to make her way to the front.

"That's the spirit!" she heard him call out after her.

Her opponent went under the name "G" on the tournament chart, so she couldn't really try and get an idea on who he was, and when he came up to the elevated platform to take the other seat, she still was unable to tell due to the hoodie that hung so low over his head. How did he manage to play like that? He was way taller than her, and that was kind of intimidating, but she pushed that aside because _why did that matter at all in this situation._

"Uh, good luck," she said to the mysterious male. The only thing she received in response was a grunt. _I'll take it?_

They took their seats, and their controllers, and it was time for the match to start.

The character he chose was Ganandorf. _Fitting_ , she couldn't help but think. She decided to be Link, for shits and giggles.

"Fight!"

"G" was immediately on the offensive, and she actually took a couple of good hits from him at the very start. His character was slow, but powerful, and it was clear this wasn't her opponent's first go-around using this guy. Ganondorf was a tough one to master, but he seemed to be using him pretty well.

Not well enough, though.

Lucy easily regained the upper hand with her ranged moves and quick reaction time. She made sure not to get too close, knowing it would likely lead to her downfall with a character like this.

This was how she managed to beat the first round.

She could've sworn she'd heard an irritated growl from her left.

Round two started, and this was when Lucy had begun to struggle. He was better with this character than she had originally thought, and she was beginning to get frustrated with how he kept managing to catch her. Her damage percentage was going up way faster than she wanted it to be right now, and she had to do something before she lost this round.

The sound of how hard he was pressing the buttons distracted her a moment, and she briefly wondered if he was gonna break the controller with the amount of force he was hitting them. She narrowly avoided a smash attack with quick use of her shield, but he was ready for her when she had lowered it, sending a new attack directly at her.

Her damage percentage skyrocketed.

This was simply unacceptable.

Lucy felt her teeth grit involuntarily. It was time to get serious. She only needed to receive one more direct hit before she would surely be getting knocked out of the arena, and that just would not do. She needed to prove to Natsu just what he was dealing with, and a single loss would put all her hard work to waste.

She was going to win this.

With one final hit of the A button, Ganondorf was sent flying off screen. And the ingame announcer's "Game!" signalled the end of the match.

The crowd went wild.

"Shit!" She heard the G guy hiss before rising roughly from his seat and storming off, nearly dropping the controller in his rage. She looked over at him in concern, only for her eyes to widen into saucers when she caught a glimpse of the guys pierced face.

 _Is that ...?!_

"G" was Gajeel! From Fairy Tail!

Holy crap he was just as scary in real life!

Thankfully he had already stormed off before Lucy's fangirl instincts could take over again. It didn't really surprise her much for him to be there, that was kind of expected at this point. Was Erza Scarlet here somewhere, too?

"The winner is Lucy!"

She returned her attention to the game, grinning in relief. That was _too_ close. But she couldn't believe she got to play Gray _and_ Gajeel in Smash!

Beating Natsu would instantly make this one of the greatest days of her life.

"The final match starts in five minutes guys! This tournament is officially coming to a close, so let's wish our last two contestants good luck! It's gonna be a good game, folks!"

The spectators cheered in agreement. Lucy decided to remain where she was seated, seeing no point in moving back to her seat just to come back in five minutes. She would take this time mentally preparing to face her internet crush in Smash, putting all her previous thoughts of him aside and filling her mind with determination.

Oh god this was actually happening.

Lucy was gonna have to come at this with all she had.

 _She was facing Natsu Dragneel in Smash._

She'd have never guessed this would be happening just mere weeks ago!

… Way sooner than she expected, it was time.

"Alright y'all, are you ready?!"

The crowd exploded.

"And now for the match we've all been waiting for, Natsu versus Lucy!"

The cheers persisted, and all too soon Natsu was taking the seat on her left. She looked over, expecting to be met with a smug smirk, but was surprised to see an honest grin gracing his features. All her confidence seemed to leave her now that this was actually happening. She needed to calm down! Her nerves were gonna get her nowhere in this situation!

"May the best player win!" he held out a hand, and she took it with a small smile.

"Good luck."

"KICK HIS ASS, LUCY!" She heard Cana yell over the sound of the buzzing crowd. The blonde giggled and turned towards the spectators, finding her amongst the crowd and waving. Natsu looked over as well with an offended pout, and Lucy couldn't stop the laugh that escaped her lips.

The character selection screen appeared on the projector. It was time to start.

She found herself hesitating on this screen for the first time in a while. She was decent at using most characters, but which one would he be using? This was important!

Natsu did not seem to share this problem, immediately going for Charizard and locking in.

Dammit she was losing at _character selection_!

Fine then. With a wave of resolve, she quickly decided on the first character that came to mind. Locating Sheik, she quickly locked in, the flat Final Destination arena was selected, and the match was ready to start.

3… 2… 1!

Charizard and Sheik spawned on the map.

She instantly charged at him. He didn't move.

Noticing, she stopped just before landing a hit. Why wasn't he moving?

"Um?" She glanced over at him with a slight eyebrow twitch. "What are you doing?"

"Giving you the first hit," Natsu said simply.

 _Oh you smug fucker._

All her nerves were replaced with irritation as she landed a direct smash attack. And another. And another. She wasn't letting him dodge a single one of her hits, and his damage percentage began rising steadily. She smirked to herself. This was going quite well.

Well, for a while anyway.

Just like he had with Chelia, he was starting to get a read on Lucy's tactics and began to fight back, stopping her rapid progress in its tracks. But she refused to let him rise above her. After a short while they were fighting on equal ground. For every hit Lucy got on him, he managed to land one on her, all other attacks being dodged by one or the other as they both fought to come out on top.

A couple minutes in and both their damage levels were at 90%. Any single hit could end up being the death of either of them, and neither of them wanted to be the receiver of that lucky shot. They kept their distance, landing small ranged hits here and there to bruise their opponent even more.

Their damage reached 120%.

Natsu narrowly miscalculated the range of his smash attack, leaving an opening Lucy took without hesitation.

Charizard was knocked out of the arena. Lucy won the first round.

Lucy immediately let out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, the sound of her relieved sigh being drowned out by the wildness of the audience. She didn't have time to be smug, though. That had been a really close round, but she had another one to win.

She chanced a look over at Natsu, and to her surprise he wasn't looking at her at all. His eyes were glued to the screen in intense focus. _What is he thinking?_

Whatever, it was time to win this.

The next round had started in a very different matter than the first. This time Natsu was the first to charge at her in an attempt to land a hit, but she was able to lift her shield quick enough to avoid it before trying to get an attack in. He dodged it with a jump, and was instantly on the offensive once more.

It was another back and forth battle, with neither parties willing to back down.

Their characters went ceaselessly at each other, dodging and attacking in desperate attempts to raise the other's damage, which had quickly raised to dangerous levels on both sides.

And then Lucy made the mistake of jumping at the worst possible time, leaving her open and unable to do anything as Natsu quickly rose up with a fiery smash attack.

He won the second round.

Lucy refused to let it get to her. She couldn't afford to let it get to her, because now there was one round left that she absolutely needed to win, to defend her title.

But dammit Natsu was _too good_! She hated to admit it now, but she couldn't be completely sure of her victory anymore.

She was getting caught off guard more times than she was willing to admit, and it was getting frustrating considering how much control she usually had over these matches. He was predicting every one of her moves and countering them with his own, and it was infuriating! She didn't think she'd find someone today that was equal in skill with her at this game, and while this match was grating on her nerves, it was also exciting her more than any other match had previously.

She was having so much fun.

Now if only she could just _win_ …

Charizard and Sheik spawned on the map for the third, final time.

They charged at each other.

Frustratingly, the round had ended up the same as the last two. One was constantly keeping up with the other, and when it finally seemed like one of them was gaining on the other, they would catch up quickly until they were back to fighting on equal ground.

90% damage on both ends.

100% damage.

 _150% damage_.

"Unbelievable! They've both somehow got each other at a damage of _200%_!" Lucy vaguely heard Max say from the podium.

One hit. _One hit_ was all she needed and she'd be walking home with her title defended, smug Natsu beat, and a free manga collection as an added bonus. At the edge of her seat, eyes focused on nothing but the screen, Lucy's heart was pounding in her chest. Her competitive spirit was ablaze, and she was planning every movement carefully.

Their characters stood on opposite sides of the stage, neither wanting to make a move in fear of the other somehow managing to get to them first.

Suddenly, Charizard was off, speeding towards Sheik.

Refusing to let him get that hit so easily, she charged back.

She hit him with a perfectly placed mine. He hit her with a direct smash attack.

Both characters were sent careening off the screen.

The sound of the ingame "Game!" was the only thing that could be heard in the large lecture hall.

…

"The winner is…"

* * *

 **Oh my gosh guys who do you think won**

 **I mean, _I_ know, but y'all don't, which makes this fun!**

 **I haven't played smash in so long because school so I hope I got these details right lol anyway holy crap the reviews guys! There's so many! I'm gonna cri!**

 **I think about replying to reviews sometimes but then I remember I'm socially inept trash lol anywhoo**

 **see you next time on I-should-really-be-working-on-my-other-fics-too-but-I-like-this-one-too-much-right-now**

 **this a/n is way too long**

 **But speaking of reviews I might just give you guys the lemon despite everything to show my appreciation T-T**

 **byee**


End file.
